( CNN ) Even with influential guides navigating foodies to elite restaurants around the planet, great eateries continue to fly beneath the radar. So how do we find these unsung heroes?
Restaurant-industry insiders seem a good place to start.
Here are their recommendations for underrated restaurants, none of which (at the time of writing) features on global culinary lists that matter.
"Set in the lower-middle class neighborhood of Surquillo, this eight-seat cevicheria serves a menu of six types of offbeat fish and seafood, plus a secret stash of items available only to friends and regulars.
"Matsufuji's most famous dish is cachete frito, prepared with the fin of robalo (snook) or mero (grouper), deep-fried and served in a seafood sauce."
Atoboy's cuisine is modern Korean with premium ingredients and exquisite presentation.
"The food by the former chef de cuisine of two Michelin-starred Jungsik (NYC) is strongly Korean-inflected but with modern elements, top ingredients and beautiful presentation, each underscored by umami and art.
"It's also reasonably priced -- $36 for three different dishes. Favorites are the fried chicken with spicy peanut sauce and garlic, corn with taleggio cheese, bacon and doenjang, and mackerel with green chilli, radish and scallion."
"His wife Tina, a master-baker, runs the front-of-house, while Jewell, also known as the charcuterie king of the country, toils in the kitchen. Locals return time and again for his bespoke charcuterie platters, his champion dish of butter-roasted kingklip with chicken-wing confit and pickled mushrooms.
"The seasonally updated menu also includes treats such as warm salad of bone marrow, oxtail and sweetbreads."
"It's one of the city's true chef-driven, casual fine-dining eateries, and the food that chef Arnie Marcella cranks out is straightforward and scrumptious New American with a serious emphasis on local organic produce.
"Marcella is almost obsessive when it comes to sourcing quality ingredients, and he adapts his dishes to what's fresh and available in the market.
"I adore the grilled beef tongue and snails, cleverly presented with parsnip puree, pickled mushrooms and parsley froth. The bar does superlative cocktails too!"
Burgundy serves experimental seasonal Lebanese dishes.
"Although the restaurant's tasting menu changes seasonally, I am fond of Akiki's bird dishes, his pickled vegetable dish from Jacqueline's garden and the savory and sweet bites with which he takes you on a regional journey.
"The Middle East is a tricky region when it comes to 'fine dining'; it's split into countries with hardly any produce to speak of, and others in economic turmoil. To stand out in that category of restaurants and keep challenging what exists is worthy of a mention."
"Oggero is obsessed with the fruits of the sea and his cuisine has strong Mediterranean accents. I highly recommend dishes like the sole tartare, burrata with aubergine puree and spiced pistachios, wood fire-grilled octopus and Ecuador red tuna with papines (northern potatoes) and vegetables, washed down with boutique Argentinian wines."
"He works almost exclusively with ingredients from suppliers in the Salzburg Alps, including vegetables from the gardens of the Tennengau region and fish from the nearby Bluntau Valley.
"For a teaser of what you might experience here, think fennel baked in a dough made from finely ground glacial polish from the ancient rock of Austria's highest mountain, the Grossglockner, topped with fish eggs from Austria's first caviar producer, Walter Grll."
A dinner at Albert Adria's Enigma is a fascinating gastronomic journey.
"It's probably too new to make any lists, but this restaurant offers a fascinating gastronomic proposal that plays with a gamut of spaces, each focusing on different styles of cooking (be it a snack, an ingredient, straightforward flavors or cocktails), creating a journey that invites diners to live through different experiences.
"My favorite dishes are sea ox with its coral in a soy kimchi broth and trumpet mushroom bread with Prigueux sauce."
"The service is exactly the right mix of casual and detail-oriented, and the wine list is stunning. Picks of the menu include the crisp chicken skin with whipped cod roe (great with a glass of Sicus Cru Mari) and the dry-aged Great Ocean duck paired with finger lime, crunchy coastal succulents and grilled fennel."
Jiquitaia lures customers with good old Brazilian dishes like pork belly crackling.
"A former lawyer, chef Marcelo Corra Bastos, works the stove while his sister takes charge of the cocktails, headlined by the spectacular caipirinhas, Brazil's national cocktail.
"Expect good old Brazilian cuisine at affordable prices and delicately flavored dishes like pork-belly crackling, duck rice with tucupi (Amazon cassava jus), seafood moqueca (a fish stew from Bahia with coconut milk) and coconut cake."
"There are loads of local vegetables on the menu, with meats as an accent, while sustainably raised seafood shows up more often than not.
"Monday lunch might feature the Midwestern pozole with a farm egg and pickled vegetables, or just some seasonal pastries. If you go for dinner, try the six-course vegetarian tasting menu (only $50) or the three-course Monday farm dinner."
"The food, headlined by 'raw' and 'grilled' fare like sashimi, ceviche and tartare as well as Josper oven-grilled seafood and meats, is fresh and tasty and the restaurant's interior cool.
"Red algae, for instance, is served with sweet and sour kimchi pineapple; wild sea bass is joined with aromatic turmeric and jalapenos; and barbecued flank steak with remoulade cherry sauce.
"You'll also enjoy a discovery of Russian seafood like scallops from Murmansk and Sakhalin as well as shrimps from Magadan."
Fragrant black truffle chicken wings -- one of the dishes on Neighborhood's small menu.
"A UC Berkeley graduate and an alum of Alain Ducasse's Le Louis XV, David goes to the fish markets daily to seek out wild seafood harvested from Hong Kong waters.
"His menu is brief -- about 20 savory items, plus a few specials that need to be pre-ordered.
"At a recent meal, we had fragrant black truffle chicken wings, a seafood platter with goose barnacles, razor clams and tiny whelks, and a fricasse of chicken livers, cockscombs and rooster testicles with morel mushrooms. He also makes the best canels in Hong Kong."
Food writer Crystyl Mo says: "Set in an atmospheric heritage building, PELIKAN brings 'relaxed Nordic dining' to Shanghai under talented young Danish chef Kasper Elmholdt Pedersen, who cut his teeth at Michelin-starred Henne Kirkeby Kro and Geist in Copenhagen.
"The moody, spot-lit tropical interior with quirky wallpaper is a brilliant contrast to the cool Northern European menu that features Nordic-inspired small plates.
"Think green and white asparagus with poached shrimp and radishes, juicy pork and mushrooms, and sweet Danish beer bread paired with raspberries, and crystalized white chocolate. A favorite is Pedersen's simple yet stunning charred beets three ways (charred, raw and pureed) with beurre blanc."
PELIKAN, 225 Xikang Lu (near Beijing Lu) Shanghai, China; +86 21 6266 7909
Publisher Lars Peder Hedberg says: "You might have heard about Esperanto, chef Sayan Isaksson's highly praised fine dining restaurant that bridges the best of Nordic and Japanese inspirations.
"The magnificent Nordic sashimi plate, with seafood you've never heard of, much less likely tasted, is perhaps the most traditional -- at least when compared to his pike-perch nigiri topped with lardo and confit pork, his maki with burnt salmon skin with roasted garlic or right-out renegade creations like short-rib gunkan with smoked soy or his teriyaki of grilled duck hearts in pepper."
"With a trio of head chefs -- Lorenzo Stefanini, Stefano Terigi and Benedetto Rullo, each no older than 30 -- pitching their ideas, this historic temple of Tuscan tradition in the center of Lucca has evolved into an innovative gastronomic sum greater than its parts.
"For proof, look no further than the boundary-pushing dish of spaghetti cooked in Syrah wine with grated frozen pigeon liver pate, a perfect counterpoint to the classical setting in which it's served."
Terakoya's famous smoked salmon is made in a smokehouse on the premises.
"Apart from an official Krug Champagne room and a wine cellar, the vast property also has a Japanese garden, a Japanese tea ceremony room, a theater pavilion and a smokehouse that smokes all the salmon sold on premise.
"The restaurant is known for its smoked salmon dishes and the chef, who is a keen researcher, has a catalog of more than 3,000 original recipes he created."
Writer Nicolas Chatenier says: "Chef-owners Chiho Kanzaki, Japanese, and Marcelo di Giacomo, Italian, are former chefs from Mirazur and at their minimally embellished restaurant housed in simple premises in eastern Paris, they serve highly refined French contemporary cuisine with hints of Japanese (try the signature dish of asparagus tempura).
"Here, the flavors are precise and each dish is carefully put together. The superlative fare and amazing wine selection from sommelier Paz Levinson makes this one of my greatest discoveries in recent months."
"Food is great, prepared by chef Sebastian Mattis, who worked as a sous-chef in the two-star French restaurant Le Moissonnier. Panitzke and Mattis develop every dish together, from the first to the last and thus create perfect pairings like ray, lovage, endives and a 2007 Gewrztraminer Auslese Albersweiler Latt by Hansjrg Rebholz. Great interior. No stereotype of a German Weinstube, but un-kitschy, modern, cool."
"Formerly of Gordon Ramsay Royal Hospital Road, The Square and The Hand and Flowers, Jan Ostle's elegant cooking shrugs off fashionable twerks and focuses on a weekly changing menu of just three starters, three main courses and two puddings plus cheese, although you'll be treated to a mouthful of something delicious at the start -- radishes from the chef's garden with whipped jamon iberico fat, say.
"Choose a glass from the short list of carefully chosen, mostly biodynamic wines with dishes such as cod, parsley, snails, bone marrow and Cevenne onions."
The rest is here:
20 of the world's most underrated restaurants - CNN
