I was a bit uncertain as I walked down Calvert St. toward Open City. I was looking for New Heights, and what I saw was a slightly shabby awning on a narrow storefront. This, I thought, is nothing like Firefly. But I’d been tipped off. I was there to see a man named John Wabeck about some soft shell crabs. A few months ago, Wabeck left the kitchen at Firefly to escape conference calls and focus on the food. Clearly he saved up some of his creativity and put it into the menu at his old kitchen at New Heights, where he used to work.

Despite outward appearances, the interior is welcoming and modern. A lovely wood-paneled bar sits on the first level with a spacious dining room on the second floor. I settled in at the bar and placed my order. I started with the black bean rillettes with guacamole and a chipotle crema ($8.25), and was bowled over by its arrival in an adorable vacuum seal jar with small, toasted, buttered, baguette rounds: a presentation that reminded me of the small details I had seen at Firefly. The cool, creamy guacamole (more plain avocados than the fancy guacs one’s used to seeing) provided a great foil to the roughly pureed black beans and tempered the unexpected kick from the chipotle crema.

The next course was the highly anticipated soft shell crabs (one crab – $14, two – $28) with cucumber, fingerling salad, cilantro, and vindaloo oil. Perfectly fried, the sweet flavors of the crab were allowed to come out with the light salad of cucumber, radish, and fingerling potatoes (although the potatoes were maybe a little less done than I would prefer). The cilantro and vindaloo oil provided sharper flavors to occasionally cut through all the lightness. A thoughtful sprinkling of coarse sea salt provided little salty hits throughout the dish.