Mike Lata's Fish Shack Dreams, The Ordinary Expansions?

Could downtown oyster palace The Ordinary be the start of chef Mike Lata's seafood empire? Lata talked with Zagat about how the chef kids these days only know local and seasonal and how the Charleston food scene has evolved over the last fifteen years. More on all that later, but for now, here's what Lata reveals in the final paragraph of the article.

I wouldn't take a fish shack on the beach though off my radar - that would be a nice respite from what we do every day, to do something very simple. We'd like to do offshoots of The Ordinary in a small oyster bar setting but that's yet to be determined.

When explaining why he wanted to open a seafood restaurant, Lata gets right down to it, asking "How much pig fat can you eat?"

But, overall, he's supportive of the Holy City scene, name-checking plenty of chefs in town as influential, from Robert Stehling at Hominy Grill to Two Boroughs Larder's Josh Keeler.

"And they're absolutely world class cooks and chefs in a very small proximity. It's like a little baby Manhattan but you can walk from the UWS down to the Financial District in 15 minutes."

· The Ordinary's Mike Lata on Charleston's Food Evolution [Zagat]
· All Coverage of The Ordinary [ECHS]