Opening four new restaurants in a year is an epic achievement, and with the last of the bunch — Crawford Brothers in Cary — starting service just days before Christmas, chef/owner Scott Crawford certainly deserves a little rest in the new year. With all eyes and excitement on the new steakhouse, it’s a good time to snag a reservation at Brodeto, his homage to the cooking of the Adriatic coast that opened last March as the flagship of the Raleigh Iron Works development.
Inspired by his family’s travels in Italy and Croatia, the seafood-rich menu introduces some regional specialties you might not have heard of — including the namesake brodeto, a brothy fish stew that Adriatic fishermen cook over coals and customize according to the day’s catch. It’s a traditional dish, something a friend from Veneto tells me his parents love, but you find less frequently, and only at the coast.
Chef/owner Scott Crawford honors the cooking of the Adriatic coast with Brodeto, opened in March 2024.
The ingredients vary based on location, custom, and catch. Each bowl of brodeto carries its own geographical stamp — a fact artistically rendered on the wall of the restaurant in a claywork by artist Thomas Sayre that maps the different sites that served as Crawford’s inspiration.
Creating the same brodeto you might have had elsewhere isn’t the point. Crawford and his team celebrate the humble tradition by taking the dish down to its essence — salt, smoke, and the sweetness of fresh catch — and then reassembling it on new shores.
Inside, the restaurant is airy and modern, with warm wood, Italian tile, and a substantial backlit quartzite bar. Whether you’re at the bar or not, starting with a cocktail is smart. And like Crawford’s other restaurants, the options include several spirit-free choices that are as well conceived as the rest. Beverage director Jordan Joseph offers drinks that also play with themes of smoke and salt, including seasonal negronis, plus a deep selection of Italian and Croatian wines as well as amari.
The Purple Rome, comprising tequila, grilled beet, and aloe vera, uses a bit of green chili and ginger to balance the sweetness of the beets. Vividly fuchsia, served in a coupe and polka-dotted with a few drops of activated charcoal, it feels earthy and elegant, like those statues of Roman goddesses with big, muscular feet.
As a rule, it’s always a good sign to spot fisher and forager Ana Shellem in the dining room, as we did on our visit. The one-woman force behind her sustainable shellfish company, Shellem hand delivers her wild-caught mussels and oysters to her clients, which include many of the state’s top chefs. Tonight, her oysters, roasted over coals and served with butter and pangrattato, are one of the small plates, and the brodeto includes ribbed Atlantic mussels she harvested.
“I’ve been supplying them since May. This was my first time getting to eat there, and it just solidifies the pride that I have for what I do because I can see it being respected. … It’s definitely like artistry there; they just ooze with talent,” says Shellem, when asked later about her meal. She also mentioned she was under special instructions to bring a couple pieces of the potato bread home to her husband, whose diet is gluten free.
The airy and modern space features warm wood, claywork by Thomas Sayre.
Starters include several crudos, as well as a variety of small plates — think carpaccio, sardine toast, and fragrant salads featuring ingredients from little gem hearts to octopus and pork belly. A selection of pastry chef Suzanne Branon’s breads — focaccia, Croatian pogaca, or the aforementioned potato bread — accompany all.
Our suggestion is to try as much of the menu as possible: Share plates; find more friends at the bar — do whatever you need to do to taste as much as you can. (And save some of the bread. What’s coming next demands sopping up broths and sauces.)
Handmade pastas — whether seafood forward like the capunti with blue crab or linguine al Nero; or earthy, like ravioli with braised rabbit or squash agnolotti — play with the same elements of earth, sea, salt and smoke. The seafood and meat entrees — several of which are meant for sharing (whole roasted branzino, a 24-ounce steak) — are cooked on the massive wood-fired grill that takes center stage in the open kitchen. The giant hearth has been specially designed with spots for simmering the brodeto and another house specialty, peka, which is usually made with lamb and pork but here comprised veal and winter vegetables.
Both brodeto and peka start with fire and are more methods of cooking (philosophies, even?) that involve cooking regional ingredients in a traditional way. A peka gets its name from the particular type of dome-shaped lid that is used when roasting the food inside. Crawford worked with the Burlington-based ceramics company Haand to create a special serving bowl for both the brodeto and peka that references this special lid — flip it over and it’s the perfect container for holding all the empty shells from the brodeto. That a dish would be so thoughtfully conceived and executed from start to finish with such detail is a delight, especially when the result is both delicious and beautiful. (Haand did the rest of the dinnerware as well, and the endless flow of gorgeous plates accompanying each new dish felt decadent.)
Italian tile, and a backlit quartzite bar.
As Shellem says of her meal, “There was such a good flow; it was orchestrated. Everybody was in sync as far as the staff goes. And being able to see into the kitchen is one of my favorite parts, too. The thoughtfulness of everything and the representation of each vegetable, protein — all of it on the plate was so thought out and celebrated.”
I have a soft spot for the Adriatic Sea, which was the location for my family’s first big post-pandemic vacation. We went to Venice, despite all warnings, in the middle of August, staying with a friend in a fifth-floor walk-up that, of course, did not have air conditioning. Trips to the Lido were the only way to escape the heat and the crowds, and we went many times, taking a bus and a boat to spend all day happily submerged in the dark, salty sea.
Floating is a feeling — and I hadn’t thought much about how wonderful it is to experience full-body buoyancy until Brodeto brought it back to me. That’s how good the food and service is: It feels like floating.
There’s house-made gelato, olive oil cake, and a decadent dark chocolate custard for dessert — and, as a final delight, I hope the Caffe Menta remains on the menu as a sort of jacked-up digestivo. A shot of Branca Menta topped with whipped espresso, it’s a minty, frothy kick before the drive home — a perfect after-dinner treat, refreshing, sweet, and a little bit fancy.
Or opt for an affogato with that homemade gelato, which, of course, changes flavor with the menu. Stumped by the choice of vanilla bean or pistachio, I was elated to be given an apt solution: a swirl.
This is what it feels like to be taken care of: When faced with a difficult decision, you can have it both ways.
That spirit of expansion — in the service, in the food, in the space — is what makes dining at Brodeto feel a bit like a vacation itself. Given the weight of the world right now, finding a bit of buoyancy — like the lightness of whipped ricotta or the cheer of a gelato twist — is a special treat to be celebrated and shared. Brodeto makes that possible.
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