Trust is a Hillcrest restaurant known for seasonal New American small plates and live-fire cooking centered around a wood-fired grill. It is the restaurant that launched Brad Wise’s restaurant group and introduced the live-fire style that became his calling card. Trust has received Eater San Diego’s 2016 Best Neighborhood Trailblazer award and San Diego Magazine named it Best New Restaurant. The restaurant has a midcentury-modern feel, an open kitchen built around the wood grill and a substantial outdoor patio. When it opened, the interior was about 2,700 square feet with roughly another 1,300 square feet of patio. It feels polished but was deliberately conceived as a neighborhood restaurant rather than formal fine dining. The concept is wood-fired New American food, but the important part is the live-fire cooking. Wise became fascinated with Santa Maria-style grilling on California’s Central Coast, and cooking over flame became his signature. Trust’s menu uses that approach with seasonal ingredients and combines it with influences that range pretty widely—from Mexican and Mediterranean flavors to Asian ingredients and classic European techniques. Ultimate Sticky Bun — Trust’s oversized sticky bun, served warm with a glossy caramel-like sauce, a scoop/dollop of creamy topping, and chopped pecans.

Fried Rice — fried rice topped with two sunny-side eggs, with Korean beef, bok choy, furikake and chopped herbs. Furikake is a Japanese seasoning blend commonly made with ingredients such as sesame and seaweed.

Albacore Tartare — raw chopped albacore with black sesame, cilantro, avocado, sprouts, cucumber and trout roe, accompanied by taro root chips for scooping. Sampling all three made for a well-rounded brunch: the sticky bun was rich and indulgent, the fried rice was savory and satisfying with runny eggs tying everything together, and the albacore tartare provided a lighter, fresher contrast with creamy avocado, briny trout roe and crisp taro chips Grade: A

Cesarina is a handmade-pasta-focused Italian trattoria in San Diego’s Point Loma/Ocean Beach area, at 4161 Voltaire Street. It opened in February 2019 and was founded by three Italian natives: Cesarina Mezzoni, Niccolò Angius and Giuseppe Capasso. Mezzoni is the chef and namesake behind the restaurant. The concept is built around the idea of the Italian matriarch: “Cesarina” represents the grandmother/mother/daughter who feeds and takes care of everyone. That translates into a colorful, warm, slightly whimsical trattoria rather than a formal Italian fine-dining restaurant. One of the coolest features is its open-air pastificio — pasta factory — where you can actually watch fresh pasta being made. The restaurant has also received a Michelin Bib Gourmand, which Michelin uses to recognize restaurants offering particularly good food at a comparatively good value. Part of the menu lets you choose your fresh pasta shape and then choose the sauce. Shapes include fettuccine, spaghetti, pappardelle, paccheri, lumache, mafalde, rigatoni, gemelli and gnocchi, with sauces including Pomodoro Fresco, Bolognese, Funghi, Norma, Tartufona and Arrabbiatissima. There are also composed pasta dishes. The menu includes Lasagna alla Bolognese, made with hand-rolled egg pasta, Bolognese, béchamel and mozzarella; Paccheri Vodka and Scampi, with shrimp and a whole langoustine; and Gnocchi Salsiccia, Porcini e Tartufo, with truffle sauce, porcini and bone marrow. I had the "GNOCCHI, PORCINI, GAMBERI e TARTUFO" - Handmade Gnocchi, garlic, Peperoneino, shrimp, porcini mushroom, "crema al Tartufo", parsley, freshly shaved imported black summer truffle. This was easily one of those dishes where every ingredient sounded rich on its own, but somehow it all worked together perfectly. The handmade gnocchi were soft, pillowy and almost melted in my mouth, coated in a silky truffle cream that was earthy. Porcini mushrooms doubled down on that deep, savory flavor, while the shrimp added a little sweetness and made the dish feel more substantial. The freshly shaved black summer truffle on top made the whole thing feel incredibly indulgent. It was creamy, earthy, garlicky and ridiculously good — the kind of pasta dish I kept thinking about after it was gone. Grade: A

Le Petit Chef is one of -- if not THE -- most unique dining experiences I've ever had. Why? Because it's both dinner and a show. Le Petit Chef is an immersive dining experience where a tiny animated chef appears to cook your meal right on your table. Using 3D projection mapping, animations are projected onto your plate and table. Before each real course arrives, you watch the miniature chef “prepare” it — sometimes struggling with ingredients, making a mess, or going on a little adventure. Held in a Hilton Hotel restaurant, the room is specially set up with the projectors overhead, projecting onto each individual plate.
I was fortunate to experience this with my best friend Kaitee, and we made the trip all the way to San Diego to check it out. There's a little bit of wonkiness with my phone camera vs. the projector and trying to get the lighting correct, so the photos don't do it justice.

First Course: The Garden — Burrata Salad

The little chef starts out in his garden, planting and harvesting vegetables. He tends his crops, gathers tomatoes and other ingredients and begins assembling the first course.

Then comes the mole.

The mole starts stealing/messing with his vegetables, and Le Petit Chef tries increasingly ridiculous ways to get rid of it. He eventually resorts to dynamite, with the explosion sending vegetables flying around the table. The real dish: tomato compote, basil oil, rocket and balsamic vinegar Second Course: Under the Sea — Seafood Bisque

The table transforms into an ocean.

Le Petit Chef goes fishing and dives underwater, encountering sea life as he tries to collect ingredients. In one version, he uses a fish to lure a lobster, then rides across the plate/ocean on the lobster.

Eventually he gathers the seafood he needs and prepares a soup. The real dish: East Coast Lobster, shrimp, octopus and chive brandy cream Third Course: Deep Sea - Lobster

Le Petit Chef heads to the seaside in search of the perfect lobster, diving into an underwater world filled with colorful sea life. He eventually encounters a giant lobster, leading to a playful chase as the tiny chef tries to catch his much larger dinner. After wrestling with the lobster and figuring out how to get it back to the kitchen, he prepares it for the table — with the animation making the lobster appear to move right across your plate before the actual lobster entrée arrives. It’s one of the more elaborate sequences in The Beginning because the projection turns the entire table into the ocean, making the transition from the animated underwater adventure to the real lobster course feel like one continuous scene. The real dish: Lobster, pearl barley, caviar and beurre blanc
Fourth Course: The Grill — Beef

This is the big meat course.

The table becomes a grill/barbecue scene, with Le Petit Chef cooking beef over the flames. The animation actually emphasizes the cooking process — fire, smoke and the little chef trying to manage the grill. Other versions have a particularly funny sequence involving a giant bee that causes trouble around the barbecue.

At the end, the real dish arrives. The real dish: Filet mignon au poivre from Circling Hawk Farm, honey glazed carrots, broccoli yukon gold potato mash and peppercorn sauce. OPTIONAL: Birthday Cupcake

This is a sweet part of to Le Petit Chef's adventure.

After all of his cooking exploits, the scene shifts into a celebration, with Le Petit Chef preparing for a special occasion. A tiny cupcake appears as the centerpiece, and the animation turns the table into a festive setting as he puts the finishing touches on the dessert.

The celebration builds around the cupcake, with music, decorations and a birthday-style surprise before the real dessert arrives at the table -- but you only get the cupcake if you're someone actually celebrating something. I was so disappointed to just have an empty plate after that animation. FINAL COURSE: The Celebration — Crème Brûlée

This is the final course of Le Petit Chef's culinary adventure.

The table transforms once again as Le Petit Chef prepares a crème brûlée, working through the dessert-making process in his tiny kitchen. The animation builds toward the most important part — the crackly caramelized sugar topping — before the projection gives way to the real dessert arriving at the table.

At the end, the real dessert arrives. The real dish: Crème brûlée, with Tahitian vanilla custard, burnt turbinado sugar cust and fresh berries Grade: A

Wayfarer Bread was founded by Crystal White, who spent more than two decades working in professional kitchens and bakeries. She co-founded and managed Proof Bakery in Los Angeles and later trained at — and ran the bread department of — Tartine Bakery in San Francisco, which is a pretty significant pedigree in the bread world. She started Wayfarer with eight Lodge cast-iron cookers and pop-ups at San Diego coffee shops before opening the Bird Rock location in 2018. The bakery still emphasizes naturally fermented bread, French-inspired pastries, small batches and local/organic ingredients. And it’s tiny. That’s actually part of the point. A 2026 SFGATE profile says White has no plans to open another location, despite the bakery’s success, because she wants to preserve the small-scale operation and focus on the bread. The pastry and bread options include: Classic sourdough — naturally fermented, organic flour; Multiseed loaf — sesame, flax, sunflower and pumpkin seeds; Kouign amann; Almond croissant; Chocolate croissant; Jalapeño & cheese croissant and more. I tried a ton of goodies: peach and corn scone, plum-hazelnut croissant, mushroom and corn cream bun, tomato & white cheddar tile. This box is what dreams are made of. Delicious, unique and beautiful. Grade: A

The Little Italy Mercato is a farmers market that takes over several blocks of San Diego’s Little Italy neighborhood each Saturday, bringing farmers, food producers, bakers, seafood vendors and other small businesses into the heart of the neighborhood. The Saturday market runs along West Date Street, with vendors filling the sidewalks and closed-off streets between the buildings of Little Italy. It is a year-round market, and Saturday is the big one, with more than 185 farmers and vendors participating throughout the market’s footprint. The produce is a major part of the market, with California-grown fruits and vegetables changing with the seasons, along with flowers, plants, eggs, meat, poultry and other products that make this feel like a place where locals can actually do some grocery shopping. There is also plenty to eat while you walk, including baked goods, breads, prepared foods, coffee, seafood and specialty products from local food businesses. The market has a particularly California feel because of the sheer variety of produce, with colorful displays of fruit and vegetables competing for attention with flowers, baked goods and jars of sauces and other locally made products. For a food lover, though, the fun is less about making a shopping list and more about wandering from booth to booth to see what catches your attention. Little Italy itself adds to the experience, since the market is surrounded by restaurants, cafes, shops and the neighborhood’s Piazza della Famiglia. The streets can get crowded as the morning goes on, so arriving early makes it easier to walk around and actually stop at the vendors without fighting through the Saturday crowds. I would give yourself at least an hour or two if you want to do more than make a quick pass through, particularly if you plan to eat while you’re there. The market is also a good place to pick up things that are difficult to justify buying at home, whether that is particularly beautiful California produce, a loaf of bread, flowers, local specialty foods or something to take back from the trip. There is a second Little Italy Mercato on Wednesdays, although it is considerably smaller than the Saturday market and runs from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. The Wednesday market is more of a neighborhood market, while Saturday feels like the full Little Italy experience, with vendors spread across the larger footprint and considerably more people coming out to shop and eat. What I like about markets like this is that they give you a look at a city through its food rather than through its tourist attractions, and Little Italy Mercato is particularly good for that because so much of what is being sold comes from the surrounding region. It is also an easy stop to combine with the rest of Little Italy, so you can spend the morning eating and shopping at the market before wandering the neighborhood for lunch, coffee or more food. One of my favorite things about visiting farmers markets when I travel is seeing what a place grows, makes and eats, and the Little Italy Mercato makes that especially easy because the selection changes with the seasons. There is also something nice about experiencing Little Italy this way rather than simply coming for a restaurant meal, because the market puts you right in the middle of the neighborhood and gives you a chance to see the people, businesses and food producers that make up this part of San Diego. There is also something nice about experiencing Little Italy this way rather than simply coming for a restaurant meal, because the market puts you right in the middle of the neighborhood and gives you a chance to see the people, businesses and food producers that make up this part of San Diego. Have you ever been?