Fort Oak - San Diego
A menu boasting hearth-grilled meats and seafood, plus a chef-driven menu utilizing seasonal ingredients, helps to attract diners into Brad Wise's San Diego gem that's popular with the locals. The Trust Restaurant Group, which is also behind Rare Society and Trust, owns Fort Oak.
Read MoreMore specifically on the menu: It's broken down into a raw bar selection, house plates, shareable dishes, and entrees. Each section is tempting enough to want to choose at least two from each.
For the raw bar, guests are encouraged to make it easier on themselves by just choosing a seafood tower, which comes in "petite" or "grande." They're loaded with oysters, clams, crab claws, hamachi poke, and scallops.
Rabbit and bacon sausage serves as one of the "house plates," while goat milk cavatelli, hearth-roasted carrots, and chicken-fried quail are considered share-able dishes.
But don't eat so much of these that you won't be able to enjoy your entrees, which are the real draws at Fort Oak. There's a 40-day dry-aged rib-eye, Duroc pork chop in black garlic sauce, and local duck cassoulet.
