Okra, new eatery from team Crudo, opens 9/16

• Chef Cullen Campbell, Maureen McGrath Campbell and mixologist Micah Olson come from Phoenix's Crudo
• Their new restaurant, Okra, features American Southern cuisine with Italian influences
• Okra is in limited soft opening until Sept. 16, when it opens its doors to the general public

This past weekend, the doors to one of the year's most hotly anticipated restaurants opened just a crack.

Okra Cookhouse & Cocktails, chef Cullen Campbell's foray into the cuisine of the American South, launches on Sept. 16. But invitations to a limited soft opening have landed in the inboxes of loyal Crudo customers, seats are filling with family and friends, and the staff is gearing up to welcome the general public.

Okra is the sophomore effort from the team behind Phoenix's Crudo, where Campbell, wife and co-owner Maureen McGrath-Campbell and co-owner/mixologist Micah Olson have spent the past three years producing some of the Valley's most acclaimed cuisine. A jump from delicate, Italian-inspired raw fish creations to hush puppies, ham hocks and pimento cheese might seem a bit rash, but only if you're unfamiliar with Campbell's background.

"My entire family lives in Arkansas, about 45 minutes outside of Memphis," Campbell says. "I pretty much spent the majority of my childhood in Memphis. We've got a cotton farm over there."

With Okra, Campbell is returning to his roots, his childhood, and to the place where he first started cooking, a small BYOB restaurant in Memphis.

"It had a little cooking school off to the side of it, and that's how I actually got started cooking," he recalls. "I was like, 'I'm going to take some cooking classes.' And I started talking to the owner of the restaurant, and I was like, 'can I have a job?' " Raised in a family that was always cooking, Campbell quickly took to the professional kitchen. "She said, 'you're pretty good. Keep doing it.' "

So he did, pursuing a restaurant career that brought him to Phoenix, through the kitchens of Gregory's World Bistro and House of Tricks, and to the lobby of the Steven Paul Salon in Old Town Scottsdale, where he first launched Crudo, preparing dinners of wildly creative and meticulously crafted Italian-style sashimi from a counter that served sandwiches to salon patrons by day.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, even the most vibrant and delectable raw fish creations proved difficult to sell out of a hair salon, and it wasn't until teaming with McGrath-Campbell and Olson and relocating to Crudo's current location — tucked away in the rear of Arcadia's Gaslight Square — that the restaurant achieved lift, bringing local and national attention to the trio of restaurateurs.

Now, they're parlaying their success at Crudo into Okra, which Campbell feels is an oddly complementary fit.

"(Italian) is really kind of similar to a lot of Southern cooking that I grew up with," Campbell says. "I always did a little Southern cooking in my Italian over (at Crudo), so here I'm doing more Southern but with some slight Italian influences instead. We're kind of flip-flopping it a little bit."

In what could be construed as a running gag, they have once again hidden their restaurant at the rear of the building, this time on Seventh Street in north-central Phoenix. The construction punch list isn't quite done, the staff is still getting acquainted with their new environs, and the dishes need a bit of polish (though not much), but Okra is already pleasing palates and appears on pace to be ready for its grand opening in two weeks.

Casual and bustling, it's a lively space with vaulted rafters and a relatively small seating area, tables flanked by the bar on one side and the kitchen on the other.

Olson's list of libations covers both old and new, his creative concoctions on the left while classic Southern cocktails like mint julep, sazerac and old fashioned occupy the right. It also features a section of creative juleps that will change with the seasons.

The menu is filled with the flavors Campbell remembers from his childhood and holiday visits to the family homestead.

"My uncle is a huge fisherman, so there's always some sort of fish laying around that we cook off, and there's always tons of duck. They're big duck hunters, so we have duck stews, duck casseroles," Campbell says. "My aunt's wild duck casserole is, like, the best thing on Earth."

But these memories have taken a spin through Campbell's creative, Italian-influenced mind, sometimes emerging pure, sometimes absorbing a little bit of Southern Europe along the way.

The menu's "snacks" are just that, small, tapas-sized morsels ranging from $4 to $7, suitable for sharing only if you need little more than a fleeting taste, and begging to be eaten with one of Olson's beautifully balanced cocktails. Housemade pork rinds are fried to a crackly crunch and dusted with rendezvous spice (from Rendezvous Ribs in Memphis) and vinegar powder, giving them a spicy kick and a sharp, sour tang. Chicken skins are also fried and doused with honey habanero sauce — a collaboration with Phoenix-based Homeboy's Hot Sauce — and the restaurant's namesake okra is grilled over smoldering wood and dressed with a sauce made from quark, the creamy Eastern and Northern European cheese.

"Shares" are a little more substantial, and priced from $7 to $13. Pickled dilly beans are battered and fried and served with a Mississippi comeback sauce for dipping, while roasted bone marrow arrives with a thick, delectable biscuit and a sweet, meaty pepper jam that's loaded with oxtail.

Bivalves, like the smoky, garlicky oysters al forno and potlikker mussels, are early candidates for the menu's stars. "My grandmother loved potlikker," says Campbell, speaking of the broth left behind after cooking a pot of greens. "Whenever it was done, she was always pouring the potlikker over cornbread and just eating it with a spoon." Campbell sidesteps the debate over whether it's best to dip cornbread in polikker or soak the cornbread with it by doing both, pouring the mussles and broth over two slices and setting two more on top.

The "focaccias" own their own section of the menu, and resemble neither the traditional Italian nor the thicker American variety. Constructed more like simple pizzas, these skew more Italian — featuring toppings like salami, broccolini, goat cheese and peperonata — and show promise.

"Bigs," all priced under $20 save for the whole cornish hen, are hearty and generous. The ham hock osso buco, set atop black eyed peas and bold sauteed greens, is rich and salty and enough to feed three. Catfish al forno was beautifully prepared, tender and served with a superb succotash, minus the corn. Tennessee hot chicken isn't of the face-melting variety, but it packs some heat and even more flavor. And if anything requires more spice, a custom blend of Homeboy's Hot Sauce made just for the restaurant adorns every table.

The dessert list features pies by Pie Snob, and a doughnut made with canned biscuit dough that's fried and topped with thick caramel and coarse salt. "That recipe is ridiculous," says Campbell, referring to the doughnut's processed provenance. "But it's so good."

Okra's contemporary Southern fare is poised to make a lot of noise on the local scene. Though freshly minted, the restaurant is already looking strong, and the team appears capable of living up to big expectations. But despite the buzz, Campbell expresses hope that Okra can be a casual, comfortable place for diners to kick back and enjoy themselves.

"I always tell everybody, Crudo is the place I would only eat at once a week. This is the place I want to eat at every day and get fat."

Details: Okra, 5813 N. Seventh St., Phoenix. 602-296-4147, okraaz.com.