The Hidden Gem Dish: Oatmeal with peach preserves and mascarpone. Kyle Bailey has a plan when dishes he loves aren't selling as well as he'd hoped: he gives them out to diners for free as sides. "Everyone likes free food. And free hot food is really special," Bailey said. And that's what Kyle is doing now with the steel cut oatmeal served with peach preserves and mascarpone on the brunch menu. "I really like oats but it's a tough sell, Bailey says. So he convince diners how tasty good oats and mascarpone can be. "It's a fun thing to have around. Sometimes there's a wait time on tables, so I'm say, 'Send them oatmeal," and they say, "That's the best oatmeal they've ever had."

The Hidden Gem Dish: Soujouk Pide (full name: Soujouk Yumurtali Peynirli Pide). Zaytinya’s head chef Michael Costa and R&D director Ruben Garcia instantly knew they had to add this traditional Turkish flatbread to their menu after getting addicted to it a few years ago on a research trip in Instanbul. Soujouk pide consists of kaşar cheese, an egg, and soujouk — tangy, spicy cured Turkish sausage. “The people that order it love it, but I think that we may sell more of them to our staff than to our guests,” Costa said.

The Hidden Gem Dish: Duck terrine small plate. Chef Jim Jeffords keeps a classic duck terrine on the menu in hopes that diners will try something out of their comfort zone. The terrine features duck breast, duck confit, Tasso ham, pistachios, and dried cherries, served with grilled ciabatta, a ramp top mustard, pickled ramps and mache from the restaurant’s rooftop garden. “It’s just ripping good,” said Jeffords.

The Hidden Gem Dishes: Cold steamed chicken breast and cod roe spaghetti with American caviar. Daikaya chef Katsuya Fukushima recommends two sleeper dishes on the izakaya’s menu. The skin-on chicken breast with a creamy but not fatty sauce made from tofu and sesame is a staff favorite. And the neo-classic Japanese-Italian cod roe spaghetti is a riff on a dish invented in the 1960s at Kabenoana (Hole In the Wall), a famous Tokyo restaurant known for rearranging Italian pasta using Japanese flavors.

The Hidden Gem Dish: Whole barbecued pig’s head. Tad Curtz and David Rosner, owners of Garden District (aka The Restaurant Formerly Known as The Standard) keep their menu pretty trim. But one dish possibly overlooked by diners is the pig’s head smoked with apple and mesquite and served with lots of housemade BBQ sauce on the side. Garden District smokes five a week, and the best chance to try it is on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. “It’s pretty fun for a group of four or more,” Curtz and Rosner say.

The Hidden Gem Dish: Turnip Cakes. The name doesn’t sound super appetizing, but the turnip cakes drenched with sweet Szechuan soy sauce on Scott Drewno’s Saturday Dim Sum Brunch are a must-order.

The Hidden Gem Dish: Cuban sandwich. This underrated sandwich has been on Addie’s lunch menu for years. The Cuban sandwich combines brined and roasted thin-shaved pork shoulder, smoked ham, and jalapeño aioli, mustard ale cheese and pickled onions on a crunchy ciabatta baguette. “This dish is a favorite of mine, I guess I’m just a natural born porkaholic. It’s porky, spicy, crunchy... and sure to send you into a food coma,” said Rick Cook, executive chef at Addie’s.

The Hidden Gem Dishes: Housemade scrapple served with poached egg and jalapeno jelly at Eatbar and slow braised oxtail with Jerusalem artichoke puree and cucumber blossoms. Chef Nate Waugaman thinks these dishes are a bit overlooked, and hopes that more diners will get past the intimidation factor to try scrapple and oxtail.

The Hidden Gem Dish: Boquerones. This tapas plate includes white anchovy filets served on top of a cucumber, tomato and Kalamata olive salad. “ I think when guests see anchovies they think it’s going to be a very fishy tasting dish, but it’s not. Its very refreshing and perfect for the summer,” said Cuba Libre chef and restaurateur Guillermo Pernot.

The Hidden Gem Dish: Grilled Sardines with Fennel, Arugula, Orange Confit and Nicoise Olive Salad. Executive chef Ed Hardy of Bistro Vivant doesn’t understand why this simple sardine dish doesn’t sell better. “It’s no more complicated than the listed ingredients, but the flavors are bold and classic at the same time. It’s like a quick trip to the Mediterranean,” he said.

The Hidden Gem Dishes: Beef tongue, simmered hijiki with fishcakes, kinpira, and shochu. The restaurant’s co-owner and general manager Cizuka Seki thinks there are a few stand-out menu items that first-time guests might gloss over, including some of the vegetable dishes, like kinpira (lotus root and burdock root) and hijiki, a brown sea vegetables. The slow-cooked beef tongue is another favorite, plated with a classic yuzu miso sauce and scallion. But the item Seki really want diners to try is Izakaya Seki’s extensive selection of shochu, a distilled, hard alcohol from Japan that uses a variety of ingredients as its base like sweet potato, rice, or barley. “I really want it to catch on because it's the perfect drink to accompany our food and a very classic izakaya offering,” she said.