Brad Wise

Coming Up

Executive Chef posts at JRDN and Belmont Park gave Brad Wise the platform to shape a polished, high-energy service style before he shifted from operator to builder. That move matters in trade terms: it marks the point where a chef’s work stops at one dining room and starts extending across a group. Today, Wise is owner and chef of Trust Restaurant Group, chef and owner of TRUST (since 2016), chef and owner of Rare Society (since 2019), chef and owner of Fort Oak (since 2019), chef and owner of Cardellino (since 2020), and chef and owner of The Wise Ox (since 2020). Those roles read as a sequence of openings, but they also show a method. Across JRDN and Belmont Park, then into Trust Restaurant Group, Wise’s career has been built through distinct projects rather than a single repeated format. The years attached to TRUST, Rare Society, Fort Oak, Cardellino, and The Wise Ox show a steady buildout, with each title carrying its own identity while staying tied to the same broader point of view.

Where They Are Now

As owner and chef of Trust Restaurant Group, Wise works across a set of restaurants that share an underlying discipline without collapsing into one template. TRUST, opened in 2016, established the group’s first marker; Rare Society and Fort Oak, both from 2019, widened the range; Cardellino and The Wise Ox, both from 2020, pushed it further. The through line is control over experience as much as operation. Wise’s own framing makes that clear: the work is meant to give people something specific to the group’s ethos and credo, not simply another seat at another table. In that sense, the progression from JRDN and Belmont Park to Trust Restaurant Group is less about scale alone than about consistency in standards, room by room.

In Their Words “It’s not profit that drives me, it’s giving people an experience unique to our ethos and credo.”