Fort Oak

everything by this chef/restaurant group is great. have yet to be disappointed.food is great, bartenders are great, ambiance is great. just a classic top notch restaurant serving top notch flavor. highly recommend.

I want to give Fort Oak five stars, but the blue chairs, for the outdoor seating, are not conducive to sitting any duration. I was recently there for a friend's birthday dinner with nine other people. Since there food is family style, you want to sit, chat, keep ordering food, drink, order more food etc. We were there for about 90 minutes, at which point, I don't think any chairs would've been comfortable. Lol, however, I noticed that they had more cushioned chairs under the covered part of their restaurants. I assume the blue outdoor chairs hold up better under various weather conditions. With that said, the food is amazing. Every bite of every dish was five stars. The service, our server was Jeff or Geoff, was five stars...the enthusiasm in which our server described the food, "The steak is butter..." had my mouth watering before the food even arrived. Most importantly, the serving sizes were satisfying. I ordered the branzino, which was already deboned. I actually like navigating around the bones, it allows me to play with my food in a fun way, but no points off for that. We also ordered vegetables (carrots, broccoli and something else), all I say is WOW! I could've just eaten the veggie dishes. If kids ate these veggies, they would always eat their veggies. It was reminiscent of what Chef Charlie Trotter would do (I'm from Chicago). Other members of the party ordered steak and lamb chops, which they all loved. I've never seen everyone clean their plates. My girlfriend actually licked the bowls! Looking forward to coming back and trying the salmon and whatever other veggies I hadn't tried the first time. The ambience and sound were also stellar...sound as in some restaurants are so loud or the acoustics are so bad, it's challenging to have a conversation. Oh, and they bring you out FRESH sourdough bread, which is so fresh, I felt the steam coming off of it as they laid it on the table; extremely aromatic. It was devoured within minutes. Fort Oak has nailed the experience, front to back. My hats off to Chef Brad Wise.

Walked up and asked for the wait time for a party of 5. It took a minute for anyone to get back to us, but once someone did we were seated immediately, which was great. Our server was enthusiastic/welcoming about answering questions on the menu since it was our first time. We decided to try the oysters.The oysters took longer than expected to get to us. It felt a little discouraging that we kept seeing several hot dishes going out but not our raw oysters. When they got to us, the oysters were small but pretty good, definitely above average. They gave us less sauce than we needed, so we had to scrape the barrel for sauce. It was weird that it felt like they were stingy with the sauce considering it shouldn't be expensive to make.We liked them and decided to get some more. The tough part was flagging down a waiter. We had to keep looking around in hopes we could make contact with one. We didn't manage to flag down our waiter, but when someone came by to take the previous order of oysters, we asked him and he offered to flag down a waiter for us. After another long wait, a waiter came by and we ordered our oysters. While others got their cooked dishes, we felt we waited a little too long for raw oysters, to the point where we considered just asking for the check if it didn't come soon. When trying to flag someone down to ask for the bill, another waiter gave us a quick "Mmm" and then walked past us after we tried asking them, but not in a way where they're saying yes.We finally got our second order of oysters. We immediately told them we'd like the check. We had to wait a decent amount of time even after we finished the oysters to get the check, so I don't think that waiter that walked past us put in a request for our bill. After filling it out and adding a card onto it we tried flagging down a waiter. A waiter looked down at the bill we were presenting and then looked back up and walked past us. Seemingly on a second thought, he then turned around and picked up the bill.They took the bill back from us much quicker than the wait it took for it to get to us originally. Based off of my experience and the reviews I've seen here, the food seems really good, but the service, if you aren't at the bar, is lacking given the average price of items on the menu. If you want a good time, I recommend getting seating at the bar and getting oysters.

Came here for dinner for reservation, and we were able to be accomodated to an outdoor seating where most of their tables are. It's a nice looking set up but can get a bit cold at night, and not all tables have the fire heaters. Sourdough bread- not the biggest fan of the crust which almost looks like tree bark, and is almost as dry and tough as one. The inside is nice and soft and easy to eat though. Also not the biggest fan of the butter. It's not as soft and melted as it looks and doesn't taste as buttery as I would have hoped. 2/5 Scallop Aguachile- Super fresh! I personally think scallops complement best with super savory things like bacon/ham, but this is more of a light summer vibe, served warmish cool, with a sour twist of salsa, olive oil, and cilantro. Not my personal favorite since it felt like the scallop's taste wasn't fully utilized but I can appreciate it. 4/5 Ahi Tartare-One of the better dishes. The fish is fresh, and the taste is a good mixture of savory, salty, tangy, and umami. Spread it on the brioche toast and this dish quickly disappeared because it was so good! 5/5 Ora King Salmon- not bad, the skin is crispy and salty, and the meat part is soft and not dry. You have to make an effort to mix the meat with the sauce to get the best experience; the creamy sauce is where all the flavor is 4/5 Goat Milk Cavatelli- A dish that is also on the more flavorful side, without necessarily being too heavy. It's topped with truffle so of course it's gonna be good, hard to mess that up. Broccoli, sausage, and the cheese choice are a perfect blend of ingredients. 4/5

The restaurant is modern and elegant, the service was top tier, and the food was fantastic. We ordered the watermelon heirloom tomato salad and I had no idea watermelon and tomatoes could taste this good. The fried quail was also very yummy, very tender and flavorful! Drinks were strong but well-balanced. Ahi tartare was also very good ! Would recommend for a fancy date night :)

Went for oyster happy hour with 3 others and we ate a lot of oysters! Friends got there early and the line got long before they opened but pretty sure everyone was able to get seated for happy hour. Also got the following to all share:fries - yummybroccoli - surprisingly goodcollar - so good. got 2 orders so everyone got their own big piececheese burger - glad we shared it. Tasty but heavyDrinks were all good too. Will be back!It was rather windy sitting outside but they had heaters which helped a bit.

This restaurant is top tier, every dish was better than the last, but to be honest I would give them all a 10/10, can't even make a suggestion because out of 8 dishes, all were perfection! Perfect for a date, casual drinks and bites, sharing, or a family dinner...I came for my birthday and the service was incredible and knowledgeable, and it was a lovely place to celebrate. It's been two weeks and I'm STILL raving about Fort Oak. Take my word for it and enjoy a delicious, fresh, amazing mean!

Recently, my family and I got to experience Fort Oak for the first time together. We celebrated my cousin's birthday, who just recently moved from Austin, TX, and even as a new San Diego transplant, Fort Oak was one of the main spots that immediately caught her eye. Since my boyfriend and I came early, we ended up getting a cocktail at the bar, and the bartender kindly recommended the Durango and the Rebel. She let us know that the Durango is the current bar favorite, so I opted for that one, and I'm so glad I did! I am not a mezcal girl, but it was smooth, and the froth was really light too. I would highly recommend this one :) For the Rebel, a banana leaf is garnished within the entire interior of the glass, which is a super unique approach that we thought was creative. Although the cocktails are more on the pricey side (averaging ~$16-18/drink), you can clearly tell that these bartenders are highly experienced, and the quality justifies the cost.When our entire group arrived, we were promptly seated at a circular table that was able to seat a party of 8, and it felt really intimate. Our server, Jeff, was wonderful, professional, knowledgeable, personable, humorous, thorough, and patient. He presented different dining options, such as kitchen's choice of 3 dishes for ~$70-80/person, or going the a la carte route. We opted to go a la carte and he took the time to detail his top recommended dishes to us, which was highly appreciated.From Jeff's starter recommendations, we ended up choosing the Scallop Aguachile, the Ahi Tartare, the Chicken Liver Mousse, the Hearth Roasted Carrots, the Charred Pea Salad, and the Charred Caulilini. If you have a relatively large group like us, I recommend getting 2 starter dishes each, so that you have a sufficient amount of food for everyone. Just like Trust, the vegetable dishes at Fort Oak are incredibly well done and you can tell that the vegetables they use are seasonal and organic.We loved every starter, but I would say that I loved the Chicken Liver Mousse and the Hearth Roasted carrots the most. The hush puppies that came with the Chicken Liver Mousse were SO freaking good, tasted like sweet corn bread, and the mousse was so silky and flavorful. The carrots were also highly praised by our server, and I can see why, as they're roasted really nicely and have a nice charred flavor.For main entrees, we decided to share in pairs, and my partner and I chose the Hearth Grilled Branzino and the Heritage Pork Chop. My goodness, they were both so good, but there is a clear winner here, and that is the Pork Chop. The Pork Chop comes with black garlic sauce, coal roasted shishito peppers and potatoes, ginger, garlic chips, and herbs, and the black garlic sauce was semi-sweet and salty, so it paired really nicely with the juicy pork. The Branzino was paired with peperonata, salsa verde, fried herbs, and grilled lemon, and was basically boneless. Nonetheless, both dishes were beautifully plated and both were still delicious.Towards the end, since we were already feasting like there was no tomorrow, we said screw it, and ended up treating ourselves to a nice variety of their dessert menu as well. We got the Lemon Meringue Pie, the Berry Crisp, and the Cookies N' Cream Beignets. Holy moly, I'm not a huge desserts person, but everything was superb.We all loved Fort Oak so much and this definitely won't be our last time here. Thank you to the 'TRUST Restaurant Group' for giving us even more to look forward to together, as we continue to venture though the entire restaurant portfolio.

I've been wanting to try this place for a moment now especially since they do $1 oysters on Mondays. I was just never able to make it that time and decided to go on a regular day. Came on a Tuesday night and it was jammed packed. There's not much parking outside you'll have to park on the street so I would definitely recommend coming earlier especially on a weekend when it can get more crowded.We recently tried Cardellino (highly recommend) which is owned by the same group so we had high expectations for this place. Overall, food was good and drinks were great but service was really slow. We got a steak, goat milk cavatelli, branzino, oysters, and beef tartare. They change their menu every so often so just be aware if you go back and the item has slightly changed.We enjoyed everything but the stars were definitely the beef taretare and the oysters. Beef taretare had a Thai lemon grass spicy vibe that made it super unique and stand out. I'd come back specifically for that dish alone.

Fort Oak will forever be one of my favorite places. I have never left disappointed. Honestly I'm scratching my head trying to wrap my head around never leaving a review?! The service is always on point. Everyone is knowledgeable on the menu, they are attentive and always friendly. This last time around, we decided to try the lamb Kefta which is new on the menu. It was packed with flavor. Hubby keeps saying we need to go back bc he wants another round. The cavatelli and cauliflower dishes are staples and must try! I could go on but you get the gist...