Trust

New York's Tony Goldman has literally made the sidewalks sparkle on 13th Street. The tiny lights he planted in the pavement outside Trust pulse and color-shift around the steel facade like a rhinestone belt cinched around a showy newcomer - one making great promises for this porn-pocked corridor in the shadow of City Hall.

With a name like Trust , who wouldn't be a believer? Even the plastic ice cubes radiate light (powered by tiny batteries) in the restaurant's trendy cocktails.

But Trust needs a lot more than electric pixie dust to live up to expectations, and so far it seems to lack the oversight and follow-through to make it happen.

No real estate developer in recent memory has stoked as much hype as Goldman, the visionary of SoHo and South Beach who prophesied similar wonders for the gritty stretch of 13th Street between Chestnut and Walnut.

Storefronts were bought up for renovation. Orange zoning and building permits were posted. Goldman hired star chef Guillermo Pernot, also of ¡Pasion!, to fashion the food. And suddenly, local and national media were trumpeting Goldman for his plans to energize the dining scene just east of Broad Street.

Some competition in the hip hot-spot department for Stephen Starr?

Hardly. At least, not yet. Since Trust opened in February, it has disappointed on almost every level. It is one of the few new restaurants I've experienced here to actually worsen over my three visits.

Its potential was obvious during my first intriguing lunch. The interior of the former bank building has been stylishly redesigned with dangling red test-tube lights, a fabulous circular bar, a ceiling that resembles a woven basket, and a funky downstairs rest room painted with aqua "waves" to look like the inside of a swimming pool.

Early on, Pernot's appealing Mediterranean tapas menu also was in fine form, showing his knack for clever twists on rustic flavors. Balls of goat cheese with a "crust" of minced olives held a toasted almond inside. Crisp, slender pastries called cigares were filled with Moroccan-spiced lamb.

Cumin-y merguez meatballs luxuriated in rich lentil soup. Salmon arrived alongside an ingenious starch - mashed potatoes lightened with puréed cucumber.

To top it off, I sipped a glass of Basa Telmo Rodriguez, a delicious dry Spanish white wine from a list stocked with uncommon Spanish and Italian bottles, many of them great values.

Yet rarely has a restaurant gone from exciting to maddening so quickly. Most restaurateurs might coddle their new baby until it knows how to walk. But Goldman's managers and Pernot already seem to have cut Trust loose to run amok.

Granted, good service is getting harder to find in Philadelphia as more restaurants open, but the staff training at Trust is pitiful.

It was obvious at my first dinner from the moment I approached the maitre d' stand. The hostess stared blankly until, finally, I greeted her.

More expressive during my second dinner visit, she welcomed me with a glare. When we asked for another table after she seated us next to the bus tray beside the kitchen, she sighed and rolled her eyes.

Our servers were slightly cheerier but completely overwhelmed. Questions about the wine list? "I really don't know," our first server told us. The only one in the restaurant who did, she said, went home early - on a Friday night.

Well, what's with those cool illuminated ice cubes? "I don't know," droned our second server.

Even the runner frantically delivering food, dropping plates randomly on tables wherever he found space, seemed to do his job with a growl. I couldn't understand why six plates of tapas (which are usually shared, premeal nibbles) were crowded in front of one diner, while five other appetizers (usually delivered later) were crammed together on the other side of our table. When I asked, the guy glowered and sped off into the numbingly noisy dining room.

If Trust has an upside beyond its great bar, it's the best of Pernot's food. There are empanadillas filled with juicy ground chicken. Salty serrano ham splayed over moist shaved melon. Rich goat-cheese cake paired with sweet roasted beets. Tender grilled culotte steak with anise-stewed carrots.

Unfortunately, the highlights are too inconsistent. Pernot's cooking at ¡Pasion!, his nuevo Latino jewel on 15th Street, has made him one of my favorite chefs. He spends just two nights a week at Trust - leaving the day-to-day cooking to co-executive chef Brian Weiss - but it clearly isn't enough.

With 31 tapas, homemade breads, pizzas, pastas, rotisserie items, and house-churned sorbets and ice creams, Trust 's menu is just too large and ambitious for Pernot to manage by remote control from his kitchen at ¡Pasion!

When he wasn't behind the stove, the food was ordinary at best. The fried trout tapa tasted stale. The lobster cannelloni was fishy and overdone. The goat cheese-olive oil tapa had no olive oil.

The massive pork loin was overcooked and bland, its fig stuffing virtually nonexistent. The dry, stringy rabbit-and-mushroom ragout was dumped over a wad of pappardelle that stuck together like one giant noodle. The garlic soup was oversalted. The eggplant pilaf was mystery mush.

There were a few interesting desserts - fruit-filled beignets skewered into a "kabob," ricotta-coconut fritters with pineapple-mint relish, and a big baklava studded with dried cherries.

And there were some nice savory items: Moist duck with almonds and dates. Big garlicky grilled shrimp. And a plain whole trout sided with startlingly bitter lemon confit. Still, perhaps the best bet at Trust is the burger with truffled fries.

My guest ordered it twice, first when everyone at our table ordered, then 15 minutes after the other entrees arrived. It was clear that our server - oblivious to the fact that one of us didn't have food - hadn't relayed the order to the kitchen.

The burger finally arrived, 25 minutes after the rest of us had finished eating. And goodness, it was delicious. The hand-ground meat was irresistible under its cloak of melted manchego cheese.

I'd say it was worth the wait had it come with an apology. Had a manager noticed or cared, he or she might have taken that $9 burger off the check at the very least.

But there didn't seem to be anyone minding the store. So when it's sputtering on autopilot, whom can you trust ?

Next Sunday, Craig LaBan reviews La Encina in East Goshen.

NO BELLS

TRUST

121 S. 13th St.

215-629-1300

The much-hyped debut of developer Tony Goldman's bid to revive 13th Street has the look of a chic New York hot spot and a big-name chef behind the menu, but no follow-through to make it work. The service is cold and incompetent, and Guillermo Pernot's Mediterranean tapas menu is far too ambitious to run smoothly by remote control from across Broad Street at ¡Pasion!

MENU HIGHLIGHTS Tapas: white anchovies; goat cheese and green olive truffles; grilled octopus; cigares; chicken empanadillas. Main menu: lentil and merguez soup; goat cheese torta; hamburger; culotte steak; grilled trout; grilled shrimp; crispy duck; ricotta and macaroon fritters; blood orange ice cream.

WINE LIST Trust 's best asset is a stellar, wide-ranging wine list that focuses on less common Spanish and Italian bottles (try the Basa Telmo Rodriguez, a dry Spanish white from Rueda, for $30), with several sold by the glass.

WEEKEND NOISE At 90 decibels, the dining room can be numbingly loud. (Ideal is 70 decibels or less.)

11 a.m.-1 a.m.; Saturday, 5 p.m.-1 a.m. Entrees: lunch, $7.50-$16; dinner, $9-$17.

Reservations highly recommended on weekends.

All major credit cards accepted but Diners Club and Discover.

Smoking permitted at the bar and at the front of the restaurant.

Wheelchair-accessible.

Validated parking in the Parkway garage at 12th and Sansom is $9 after 6 p.m.

Reviews are based on multiple visits by the reviewer, who attempts to remain anonymous, with all meals paid for by The Inquirer.