This Raleigh celebrity chef’s latest concept, Brodeto, transports guests to the Adriatic Sea with fresh seafood and handmade pasta.
by Catherine Currin

Over the past several years, chef Scott Crawford and his family spent vacations exploring coastal towns in Croatia and Italy. Naturally, they prioritized discovering restaurants and meeting chefs along the way. Crawford, his wife and their two children sampled seafood and homemade pastas done with bright spices and flavors.

“Everything was fresh, but craveable, and light and simple,” Crawford says. One recurring delicacy was an aromatic fish stew called “brodeto.” “I had it so many times both in Croatia and Italy, though it was often spelled differently and sometimes even pronounced differently,” says Crawford. “To me, it perfectly encapsulates a town on the Adriatic.”

That spirit informs his latest restaurant, Brodeto, a Croatian-inspired food concept in Raleigh Iron Works. The food is welcoming and simple, but full of flavor and decadence. “We’re using more restraint. We have great ingredients and a great kitchen. We don’t want to cover things up,” says culinary director Conor Delaney, who has worked with Crawford Hospitality since 2020.

Brodeto’s menu changes seasonally, but the foundation is constant. There are light crudos like tuna topped with capers and olive oil; sardine toast (one of Crawford’s favorites) smeared with butter and tomato tapenade; fresh pasta with notes of the sea and umami when paired with blue crab, sea urchin butter or squid.

There is, of course, a brodeto. Crawford’s rendition uses a tomato broth and whatever’s seasonal from Locals Seafood, presented in a custom lidded vessel from Haand pottery in Burlington. “There’s a high level of creating something that ultimately presents itself simply,” says Crawford.

In addition to seafood, Brodeto boasts a chicken with salsa verde, a pork chop with lemon blossom honey and a dry-aged New York strip. “Smoke is pretty important to this food,” Crawford says. “We’re cooking really good proteins over the wood-fire grill.” Smoke plays a part in creating the ambiance in the space, too. Raleigh artist Thomas Sayre, known for his earthcast sculptures, was part of the conversation for this restaurant concept from the start. In the hallway leading to the restrooms, guests will find “little riddles,” as he calls them, small-scale art pieces with a unique kaleidoscope-like print on each.

“These are  made from nothing but smoke and objects, and they all have to do with food service,” Sayre says.

“I needed Thomas to help me tell the story through art and design,” says Crawford. The two have known each other for years, working together on special events here and there, and Crawford showcases Sayre’s art in his other restaurants. But this was the first time they worked together from a concept’s inception. “It’s very rare to have the opportunity to sit at the table from day one,” Sayre says. “I was able to respond to his stories and ideas and then be a helper and designer, to look over the shoulder and help.”

The largest piece Sayre created for this space is an earthcast map of the Adriatic Sea. Oriented on its side — tilt your head to get your bearings — guests can see hexagons marking the towns from which Brodeto’s cuisine hails. “We stuck washers in the mud before filling it with concrete and iron oxide to get the shapes, so that Scott or others can actually go up and say, well, here’s where this dish came from,” says Sayre.

Sayre’s art lives within an environment full of light wood tables and chairs centered around a backlit leather bench lined with pots of greenery. Crawford and his wife, Jessica, worked together to design this airy oasis with clean lines and tiny, intentional details like the leathered stone bartop and the coordinating backlit stone bar. “It almost gives the feeling that the bar is made of salt,” says Crawford. “I just kept going back to this place in Croatia where we went to actual salt fields. They dry the seawater the old-school way, with sunshine, and there were just these giant slabs of sort of translucent white salt.”

To round out the menu, Crawford and Delaney developed a creamy, velvety gelato using a machine from Carpigiani, a maker of high-end Italian ice cream equipment whose North American offices are in nearby High Point. “I’ve had this idea of bringing soft-serve ice cream into a refined setting for a longtime,” says Delaney, noting that the gelato flavors change seasonally. “There’s so much nostalgia to it.”

From start to finish, Brodeto is polished and intentional, a truly transporting experience. “The first time I ate here, I was brought to tears,” says Sayre. “I knew what it took to get there. It was fresh and new and unusual and all the creative stuff was still there.” 

This article was originally published in the September 2024 issue of WALTER magazine.