Michael Symon Plans a Cleveland Comeback With Sherla’s Chicken and Oyster

Cleveland chef/restaurateur and frequent Food Network star Michael Symon has a new restaurant in the works: Sherla's Chicken and Oyster — named for his mother-in-law — will replace the acclaimed Lolita, which shuttered in January after a fire.

Symon spilled the beans via Facebook over the weekend; while the new restaurant is "still about a year away," he says it will be a more casual affair than Lolita and feature plenty of vegetarian options, in addition to the eponymous proteins. Oysters will be served raw, wood-grilled, or Rockefeller-style, while chicken will come fried or roasted and served alongside sticky buns and various sauces.

One thing that will not be on the menu: macaroni and cheese. Despite numerous requests from Facebook fans, Symon says after 20 years of making the dish he just "can't make it anymore." He proffers a lengthy list of other proposed dishes, however, from housemade pastrami to zucchini latkes:

Symon's certainly staying busy these days: He recently opened long-awaited Mabel's, also in Cleveland, where he's attempting to coin a new regional style of barbecue, and he's got an Italian restaurant headed to the Borgata casino in Atlantic City later this year.