But in the years between then and now, McCarty developed a unique appreciation for the role that chefs and restaurant owners can play to ensure sustainable food supplies, particularly when it comes to the delicate populations of fish and shellfish.

“I think I’ve always been environmentally conscious,” says McCarty, owner of The Lobster Trap, a bustling seafood mecca on Patton Avenue. “I was born in the 1980s and so I grew up experiencing the news about pollution and climate change. This restaurant is a tool for me to do my part.”

McCarty has always felt at home in restaurant kitchens, thriving on the quick pace and the buzz of energy. “I sometimes call it ‘controlled chaos.’ But the chaos can calm me and it gives me focus,” McCarty says. “Almost from day one, I was addicted.”

After working his first job as a dishwasher, McCarty showed an affinity for cooking and was quickly promoted to a chef in the kitchen of the now-closed Parkway restaurant on Tunnel Road. Interacting at the time with other chefs in town, he realized many of them were either graduates of A-B Tech Community College’s culinary school or were currently enrolled in the program. “At that point, A-B Tech’s culinary program already had quite a reputation,” he says.

McCarty had taken enough other jobs to know that he was destined for a career in restaurant kitchens—they were the only places that challenged him personally and professionally—so in 2007, he himself enrolled at A-B Tech.

Like other students, McCarty quickly realized the rigor of the program, perfecting the cooking techniques that distinguish good chefs, but he was particularly impressed with the way instructors at A-B Tech taught the students how to manage a restaurant as a business.

“This was the first time I began to understand the business side of restaurants, which is just as important as the food,” he says. “We learned the cost of everything, the cost of each dish, and how to make the correct amount of product to turn a profit.”

While enrolled at A-B Tech, McCarty scored a coveted paid internship at The Lobster Trap. And it was here that he shined. “The seafood, when you get it fresh and prepare it well, it sells itself,” he says.

That was in 2008. And apart from a month in which he staged at The Ordinary in Charleston, a well-known seafood restaurant offering Southern classics alongside twists on the region’s favorites, he has been in the kitchen of The Lobster Trap ever since. After the internship, he was hired as a lead line cook, then sous chef, chef de cuisine, executive chef, and then manager. When the founder of the restaurant decided to move to Maine, she brought in McCarty as a partner and then sold him the restaurant in 2022.

While serving as executive chef, McCarty launched a formal effort to turn The Lobster Trap into a sustainable seafood restaurant. That meant making changes to the menu to remove threatened fish species, like bluefin tuna or Atlantic halibut, while also switching to suppliers that took steps to minimize environmental damage.

The inevitable result was a slight increase in prices, which McCarty admits he didn’t much consider until they were printed on the menus.

“Cost is always going to be a factor when you’re doing this,” McCarty says. “And when I first implemented this, it took an enormous effort to inform the guests and educate the staff about what we were doing. But most people appreciate it. When they understand what we’re doing, they know that when they’re a guest here they’re a part of the sustainable movement.”

As a result of its commitment to offering sustainable seafood, The Lobster Trap has received a certification from the Smart Catch program for several years and currently it’s the only restaurant in the state to have that distinction.

The Smart Catch program—formerly run by the James Beard Foundation and now managed by an organization called Where Food Comes From—offers a certification for restaurants that source at least 80% of their menu from sustainable sources.

While The Lobster Trap is the only restaurant in North Carolina to earn that particular designation, McCarty acknowledges that other chefs in Asheville are vocal champions for smart food policies and sustainable practices. William Dissen of The Marketplace, for example, has been particularly active on the issue—appearing on Capitol Hill to press for smart food practices—and was named “Green Chef of the Year” two years in a row by Fortune Magazine.

“I think, in Asheville,” McCarty says, “most chefs know they have to pull their weight and do their part.”