Mike Shaffer - Los Crudos Seafood & BBQ

Mike Shaffer

Mike Shaffer was a chef in New Orleans when the pandemic started. He went to southern California, where he grew up, when the shutdowns began and started a pop-up. He recently returned to New Orleans with his pop-up, Los Crudos BBQ & Seafood. He’ll be at Miel Brewery at 5 p.m. Friday, Dec. 2; Skeeta Hawk Brewery at 3 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 3; Carrollton Station at 5 p.m. Dec. 9; and Music Box Village at 10 a.m. Dec. 10. For more information, visit the pop-up’s Instagram, @loscrudosbbq.

Gambit: How did you get into cooking?

Mike Shaffer: I was unemployed after the Great Recession. My little brother had gone to culinary school. He was working at a restaurant, and he got me a job there. They gave me a prep job; they gave me a knife and I just worked my way up from there. That was in Anaheim. The place was called the Jazz Kitchen and it was owned by Ralph Brennan, so maybe there was some foreshadowing there.

I didn’t know what I was doing. I was super green. I had to ask people next to me if things were cooked — “How long does it take?” I got a little bit of skill, and they moved me to the line, and I started cooking. I ended up being the nighttime expediter. I worked there for two years.

My brother and I didn’t want to live in Orange County anymore, so we moved to Chicago. I worked at a million restaurants. It got cold one winter, so I moved down to New Orleans. I worked at Lilette for a few years, and I worked at Marjie’s Grill.

Gambit: How did you start your pop-up?

Shaffer: New Orleans got hit pretty bad (by the pandemic), so I moved home. I didn’t want to work for anyone else, and I couldn’t anyway because the pandemic closed down all the restaurants. So, I picked a name and a concept and just moved forward. There are a lot of breweries in Orange County and none of them have food. There’s a whole ecosystem of food trucks and food stands. So I just jumped into that.

At the first pop-up, I did crab aguachile. I did a pulled-pork sandwich and I did a smoked sweet potato. That’s emblematic of what I do: seafood, low-and-slow (cooked) meats and some sort of grilled veg. Wood fire makes everything taste good.

It’s the flavors I grew up eating in southern California and other techniques I have picked up along the way. The whole concept is doing more with less.

I left two years ago. I was only gone for two years. When I came back, there were all kinds of food pop-ups. I have had a few pop-ups around town, mostly at bars and breweries. The first one was at Skeeta Hawk. The pop-up scene here is awesome. Some of my favorite places to eat are pop-ups.

Gambit: What do you put on the menu for local pop-ups?

Shaffer: Always on the menu is going to be shrimp ceviche. I love the shrimp from the Gulf, but it’s more a dish I always do. The ceviche is pretty traditional. It’s just lemon, lime and shrimp. Some cilantro.

It used to be the pulled-pork sandwich, but until I get a smoker, it’s a chicken Caesar sandwich. Right now, I am not doing so much barbecue. It’s more wood-fired meat. I have a Weber kettle grill. I am hoping to get a smoker soon and start doing ribs and pulled pork and stuff like that.

And a smoked sweet potato (is on the menu). Produce in California is unbeatable — it’s like the breadbasket of the world. I love meat, I love my seafood, but wood-fired grilled vegetables — you can’t beat it. But the sweet potato was something I learned in the South. I try to make the most out of this 22-inch grill. There are two zones. There’s where the fire is, and there’s right near the front. There’s ambient heat, so I’ll put the sweet potatoes in there. They just sit there until they’re cooked. I serve the whole potato with lime crema and Korean chili flakes. I used to do grilled broccoli.

I really like the efficiency of the grill. It’s fast and people smell it and come up and start talking. It’s a good way to describe what we do.

Everything else is on a weekly whim. If I get a good piece of fish, I like to serve it raw. I like fish crudo-style. I slice it thin. I do a tuna tostada with bluefin I get from California. I serve it with salsa macha, grapefruit and avocado. Just enough accoutrements to let the fish really shine.

I did a grilled pork dish with smoked pork shoulder steak, cut into strips. Almost like bacon, but instead of belly it’s shoulder. I’d serve that with basil and some spicy mustard sauce.

I am really impulsive, and I have worked in a million restaurants. So sometimes I’ll take something (from a restaurant) and do a riff on it. Or I’ll see something at a farmers’ market and get an inspiration.

I also do some catering. I can drop off meat and ceviche by the pound. Or I can bring the grill and it’s a dinner and a show situation.


Email Will Coviello at wcoviello@gambitweekly.com