Exploring Culinary Innovation: Crave's Unconventional Delights

Some of the dishes at new American restaurant Crave in downtown Akron exit the mainstream and get a little daring, like the seared tuna served with a kimchi shrimp roulade ($19.50).

“It pushes the envelope a little bit,” says co-owner Aaron Hervey. “You’ve got chilled and warm seafood, which a lot of people might find interesting or different.”

To make the shrimp roulade, shrimp get tossed with kimchi spices, ground up, wrapped in a cylinder, poached, chilled and sliced. The tuna gets dusted with togarashi chili flakes, pan-seared and sliced. It’s all topped with a crumble made from ground toasted peanuts tossed with agave, salt, pepper and miso.The dish, showcasing flavor and textural play, is garnished with Sriracha carrot yum yum sauce and pea shoots drizzled in avocado oil.

“You’ve got some spice, you’ve got some sweet, you’ve got some texture,” says Hervey. “That peanut crumble is interesting. When you have that soft seafood, you also have that crunch."

Another dish, the airline chicken ($24), is familiar but has an intricate global taste.

“It’s yummy, zesty chicken and potato salad with Latin flavors,” says Hervey.

It starts with skin-on chicken breast with a wing that’s vacuum packed to deeply marinate it in a blood orange achiote marinade that has a slightly sweet orange flavor. It gets cooked in a sous vide water bath, tenderized then shocked in an ice bath. A chef adds more marinade and cooks it in the oven.

The potato salad side goes far beyond the norm. The base is Peruvian aji Amarillo chili paste that’s bright yellow and spicy. That’s blended with evaporated milk, feta, salt, pepper and mayo. It coats fingerling potatoes that are steamed, cut into coins, cooked in the oven and cooled till just warm.

The garnishes are bursting with different flavors, including pureed black bean, onion, garlic and chorizo chili and salsa criolla, which is julienned bell peppers, garlic and onion poached in Modelo beer and a mojo criollo marinade that’s then chilled.

Enjoy it at the relocated Crave in the Akron Savings & Loan building with an ornate molded ceiling and two-story lobby featuring a striking stainless-steel sculpture by Akron artist John Comunale that towers over the uplit bar up to the mezzanine level. The atmosphere inspires as much as dishes like the airline chicken do.

“You get the citrus, then you get a light heat in the potato salad, the black beans and chorizo stand out, the acid in the salsa criolla,” he says. “You experience a lot.”

Crave, 156 S. Main St., Akron, eatdrinkcrave.com; Next Stop: Knight Stage, 182 S. Main St., Akron, akroncivic.com