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