I never stop clocking things

This is the whole thing, really.
I am constantly, quietly saving things down. A restaurant in the corner of somebody's photo. A hotel mentioned halfway through a magazine piece I wasn't properly reading. A bar someone brought up at dinner three years ago. A friend of a friend of a friend who said the thing about the place with the good tiles.
None of it is organised. Some of it lives in my phone, most of it lives in my head, and a worrying amount of it is filed under a vague feeling rather than an actual name. But it's always on. Whatever I'm doing, some small part of my brain is going ooh, that's interesting, keep that.
The point isn't the filing system. The point is that when I land somewhere new, I'm almost never starting from nothing.

I trust my eyes first

Visuals do most of the heavy lifting for me. If I see something I like - a room, a doorway, a table, the way a light is hanging - I will go and find out what it is and where it is. I'll reverse the image, I'll scroll back months to find a tag, I'll ask. Whatever it takes. I'm not proud about it.
Said out loud that sounds a bit shallow. It isn't. If a place has bothered to get the look right, they've usually bothered with everything else too. Taste tends to be consistent. The chairs tell you about the wine list.
I talk to people. Constantly.

Not everyone. That's the important bit.

People whose taste I trust, and who go to nice places. Those two things aren't the same as going out a lot. It's a small group of people, and when you work out who yours are, mine them properly. What have you eaten recently that you're still thinking about? Where did you stay that you'd go back to? What's the thing you tell everyone about?
The answers you get from those conversations are better than anything you'll find by searching. They come with context. They come with a because.

I sit at the bar and talk to strangers

This is the one that makes people wince, and it's the best thing I do.
When I get somewhere new I find a local bar. Not the one in the guide, not the one nearest the hotel - ideally the one that looks like it isn't trying to be found at all. And then I sit at the bar. Not at a table. At the bar, next to people I don't know, and I ask them what's good round here.
They live there. They know better than anyone. That's it, that's the logic.
Nobody has ever minded. People are, on the whole, quite pleased to be asked. And what you get back is the real answer, the one with the caveats attached - yes but only on a Tuesday, yes but sit outside, that place is fine but the one behind it is better, don't bother with that at all. You will not find those caveats anywhere else.
I've had some of my best meals this way. Also one or two of my worst, which feels only fair.

And then there are the guides

I would be lying if I pretended I didn't lean on our own.
The Glassette guides are written by people who are actually in the know - people who live somewhere, or who know it properly, not people who've had two nights there on a press trip and a list from a PR. That distinction matters enormously. It's the difference between a recommendation and an advert.
If I were going somewhere new I'd use them. I do use them.

None of this is complicated, and I'm slightly wary of dressing it up as a system. It's just paying attention, and then being a bit annoying about following things up.
The places worth finding are rarely hiding. You just have to be the sort of person who notices, and who asks.