Critics’ choice: Under-the-radar restaurants in three cities

Trois Mec Los Angeles

Restaurants in L.A. that try to fly incognito are typically “like movie stars in shades and baseball caps,” said Patric Kuh in Los Angeles magazine. But unlike the average screen celebrity, Trois Mec doesn’t make a show of trying not to be noticed: Chef Ludovic Lefebvre, a French-born TV personality and local pop-up impresario, truly prefers food to be the focus, and he and his partners—Animal co-founders Vinny Dotolo and Jon Shook—have managed to do that in a former strip-mall pizza joint that’s currently the hottest restaurant in the city. To reserve one of Trois Mec’s 26 seats, you need to buy a ticket in advance online, at nearly $100 for a five-course meal. A superb staff greets you, and once seated in the spare but comfortable room, you can watch Lefebvre diligently crafting dishes that weave French technique with an array of other global influences. Butter is so omnipresent it acts like a Gallic motif, yet Japanese touches are nearly as common, and fermented walnuts give Lefebvre’s pounded beef a Korean kick. “If you’re expecting a showman, you’ll be disappointed”: This guy just wants to cook. 716 N. Highland Ave., troismec.com

Masaki Chicago

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Don’t assume that every Chicago cabbie knows the way to Masaki, said Phil Vettel in the Chicago Tribune. “The best sushi restaurant you’ve never heard of,” this year-old establishment sits in the shadow of the John Hancock tower on one of those short mid-block streets that even the pros can’t always find. Dining here is “like visiting a private club.” The 22 seats in Masaki’s hushed room are rarely full, and in any case the attentive service “makes you feel like the only customer in the room.” Highlights of the $115 five-course tasting menu include “a beautiful, vertical assortment of king crab, octopus, and sweet shrimp,” and a nigiri quartet that includes akami tuna so flavorful it matches the chutoro served at most other places. Chef Jinwoo Han usually throws in a few extras, like an amuse-bouche of glazed kabocha squash and skewered tamago. In fact, you get so much more food than expected that you wouldn’t blink if he called the meal a 10-course tasting. 990 N. Mies van der Rohe Way, (312) 280-9100

Twelve Denver

Jeff Osaka’s Twelve is a restaurant “better understood by chefs than by the public,” said Gretchen Kurtz in the Denver Westword. During the five years since it opened on a “stubbornly sketchy” block in Five Points, it’s “never generated much buzz,” even though Osaka did time as Steven Spielberg’s personal chef and has kept his brave vow to remake his menu for each month of the year. Osaka continues to count many of Denver’s best chefs as fans, and he’s done enough to hit that five-year milestone with growth still steady. I’d tell you what’s good at Twelve now but can only attest to the excellence of last month’s offerings, when scallops were served with persimmons from Osaka’s own tree and he made a wonderful apple mostarda to go alongside house-made fennel sausage. In any case, “once you’re through that door, you’re going to want to stay—not to mention return.” 2233 Larimer St., (303) 293-0287