Cleveland’s own Michael Symon continues to receive out of town press, this time in a piece from Sylvia Rector of the Detroit Free Press. 

As the newspaper’s scribe for the "Dining Out" column, Rector reports that an upcoming episode of the Food Network’s Iron Chef America will be a "battle between two almost-Detroit chefs -- Takashi Yagihashi of the renowned, now-closed Tribute in Farmington Hills, and Michael Symon, the Clevelander who owns Roast at the Westin Book Cadillac Detroit.”

The episode airs April 1.

The battle will pit two James Beard Award-winning chefs with notably different cooking styles in a contest focusing on a common “secret ingredient.”

Later in the story Rector notes Symon is “often credited with igniting his hometown's restaurant renaissance in the mid-'90s -- and if he didn't ignite it, he certainly threw gasoline on the sparks.”

"At the end of the day, I cook a very Midwestern style. It's who I am," Symon told the Free Press as he prepared to open Roast, which was the Detroit Free Press 2009 Restaurant of the Year.

As Clevelanders it is difficult to imagine a food scene without Symon playing a major role.  While his celebrity has certainly exploded in recent years, it is certainly well deserved.

Read the full Detroit Free Press story here.