One of the nation's most promising chefs is coming to Pittsburgh.

Richard Chen, whose Wing Lei restaurant in Las Vegas received a Michelin star in 2008 -- the only Chinese restaurant in the United States to earn a star from the prestigious guide -- plans to open a restaurant in East Liberty in early summer.

Mr. Chen's new, self-named restaurant will be located at the corner of Penn Circle South and South Highland Avenue, underneath a new T-Mobile store in the expanding Eastside development.

The executive chef of Wing Lei at the Wynn Las Vegas Resort said he chose Pittsburgh because it is the longtime home of his wife, Cathy Chen, formerly Cathy Yee. She owns Ya Fei, a Chinese restaurant in Robinson, and was introduced to Mr. Chen in Las Vegas by a mutual friend in 2005.

Mr. Chen, who first visited Pittsburgh last spring, has become attached to the city, which he describes as having "a lot of culture and history behind it."

The couple settled on the Eastside site after being connected with its co-developer, Steven Mosites of Mosites Co., by Ann Haigh, a Pittsburgh food writer and a friend of Cathy Chen's, and Bill Kolano of the East Liberty visual marketing firm Kolano Design.

Mr. Chen expects the restaurant will be an upscale destination, attracting local families as well as business people. He plans to recruit most of his staff from local talent.

Preliminary plans by Edge Studio Architects, which is designing the restaurant, showcase the space's large windows, natural materials and a spare, sleek look. The restaurant will include spaces for private dining for small groups.

Mr. Chen describes the look of the restaurant as modern -- "the total opposite" of what people think of as a Chinese restaurant.

His offerings promise to be different, too. He's known for light, elegant dishes that contrast strikingly with the perception of Chinese food as mostly fried, heavy and unhealthy. "My personal style of fusion is refined dishes,'' he said. "That's the meaning of my cooking style."

Mr. Chen trained at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., before moving to Chicago, where he worked at the Ritz-Carlton under Chef Sarah Stegner and as Chef de Cuisine and Manager of Shanghai Terrace at The Peninsula Chicago. He has been at Wing Lei since 2005.

The Chens' restaurant will be the latest addition to Eastside, which in addition to Whole Foods now includes a Starbucks, PNC Bank branch, Borders bookstore, a premium state Wine and Spirits store, Walgreen's and a bike store. It also will add to the growing number of exciting restaurants that have opened in the area in the last few years, including The Red Room, Abay Ethiopian Cuisine, Royal Caribbean and Typhoon.