If necessity is the mother of invention, perhaps curiosity is the mother of innovation. At least it is for Carlos Baez.
“I have a tendency to ask questions once I start doing something,” says Baez, the executive chef at Mr. Crisp, sister restaurant to The Anchorage. As a teen cooking dinner for his working parents, he admits he didn’t have a large culinary repertoire. But when making chili, for example, the budding chef would change up the spices he used, as well as changing when he added them. He always asks himself: “What if I did this? Or what if I did that?”
He bases his experimentation on a strong foundation of culinary knowledge. After graduating from Le Cordon Bleu in Atlanta, he later worked with acclaimed chef Josh Hopkins at Abbatoir and Empire State South, also in Atlanta. “I learned lots of great technique from Josh,” Baez says. “He taught me what creativity is, and to explore the different ways to cook something. I related to that. To this day, there are some things [notably many of his sauces] I never make the same way twice.”
While Baez describes Mr. Crisp as “a seafood [version of] The Anchorage,” in the past year since he took over for the restaurant’s founder Greg McPhee (who has since left the area), he has stirred tastes of his Puerto Rican heritage into the constantly changing menu. He uses adobo marinade in many dishes, as well as a spicy house-made Puerto Rican vinegar called pique. “I use achiote paste [made from annatto seeds] on the whole fried fish,” the chef says. “It gives the fish this earthy, pungent note that plays well with other spices.”
Innovating at Mr. Crisp
He takes inspiration from his own early food memories to create dishes such as mofongo (a side dish made with green plantains), and pasteles, savory tamale-like pies that substitute a dough of plantains and taro root for the traditional Mexican masa of ground corn.
Geography also plays a part. Baez has cooked in the South for the past 20 years, and those accents permeate his cuisine. Case in point is the oyster slider. The chef uses a criollo remoulade, some adobo spice, and dill pickles to which he adds adobo and a bit of pique, to give the slider a Puerto Rican twist, while bacon jam lends smoky notes of Southern barbecue. Overall, Baez describes his cooking style as “bold and vibrant with calculated restraint.” He wants colors, as well as flavors, to pop on the plate.
When the chef looks back at the menu from the opening days of Mr. Crisp, he’s awed at how elevated the cuisine has become. “I don’t know what Mr. Crisp is going to look like in a year,” he says, “but we’re going to continue evolving.” In the meantime, he’ll keep right on asking questions.
Mr. Crisp, 1501 E. North St., Ste. 102, Greenville, therealmrcrisp.com
Chef Recommends
Red Snapper Ceviche
This raw fish starter is marinated in a mixture of smoked Scotch bonnet tiradito, fresh turmeric root, cherry radish, and cilantro.
Fried Oyster Sliders
With a mix of Puerto Rican flavors and Southern accents, fried oyster sliders distill the essence, as Baez puts it, of “a Puerto Rican living in the South.”
Blue Hill Gold Mussels Frites
A play on Belgian moules frites (mussels and French fries), Mr. Crisp’s version bathes plump, hard-to-get Blue Hill Gold mussels from Maine in a Puerto Rican coconut broth fragrant with roasted garlic and achiote and serves them with Chipperbec fries.
