Zest is launching a restaurant discovery app powered by where people actually eat

A new startup aims to reinvent how people discover their next favorite place to eat, and perhaps more one day. Enthusiasmnewly launched Restaurant discovery appuses a combination of transactional data and artificial intelligence to deliver personalized restaurant recommendations based on where people actually go to eat, drink or grab a coffee.

Founded in November 2024, Zest currently has $1.8 million in seed funding from Alexis Ohanian at 776 and Steve Jang at Kindred Ventures. It’s been in beta testing since almost day one, and has expanded from friends and family to larger groups over time.

Now, the app has launched to the public, allowing anyone to track their food outings and get recommendations. Within weeks, Zest has attracted over 100,000 visits after launch and counting.

While a number of apps allow people to create favorite menus or organize favorite places, zest The advantage is that its recommendations are based on real-world data. To use Zest, you link your credit card to the app, and it will import all the restaurants you’ve visited to create a personal dining map that others can follow. (Doesn’t track fast food or junk food to reduce clutter.)

As the app learns where you’re eating and what you like, it gets smarter, offering personalized recommendations for what to try next. You can also follow friends or creator-curated profiles to get other suggestions on where to eat, either in your city or when traveling, if you choose.

Your credit card data is imported into Zest via your financial services company Man’oushehtrusted by banks and other fintech and budgeting applications. This allows the app to access your credit card transactions, import only those in the food and drink categories for its map, and discard the rest.

The idea isn’t as crazy as it seems. Venmo also leverages people’s willingness to share where they shop and eat with others, turning spending into a social network of sorts. In an era before the Web, A startup called the infamous Blippy You tried to turn your shopping feed into a recommendation network of sorts.

The mistake Blippi and others like him made was that they stopped at sharing data alone, instead of building a data-driven network that improved their understanding of users’ interests over time. Additionally, it’s likely too early, as consumer sentiment toward data sharing has improved over time, as they’ve seen where it can add value in services like Apple’s Find My Friends, Snap Map, and others.

“Our approach with Zest, by doing it through food-based spending, we actually think we’re showcasing more places that are actually interesting. Rather than it being about social situations and sharing that you went to this or that Michelin-starred restaurant,” explains the Zest co-founder. Mario Gomez Hallwho was previously head of design at social calendar app Saturn, Which came out to Snap last year. (Technical co-founder of Zest Alex MuellerAt the same time, he brings his experience at Apple and other technology companies to the new venture.)

“It’s actually more about your regulars and the places that are the ‘hole in the wall’ — the burrito place you love and can count on,” Gomez-Hall continues. “And we point that out because we see redundancy and spending.”

The idea behind Zest is based on his understanding of how organization-based social networks work, which Gomez-Hall learned from his previous startup. Cymbal is a musical instrument,focuses on music. Both companies were trying to connect people with similar tastes, even if they weren’t your friends in the real world.

“With Zest, there’s a limited selection of restaurants in any city,” he says, referring to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he now resides after graduating from Tufts University in Boston. “I’m lucky because I live in an area that has a lot of new restaurants and places opening up. “But if you’re in a smaller city, there may be fewer. So it’s all about organization and finding the neighborhood haunts, the hidden gems.”

In addition to recommendations, Zest leverages more than 80 million reviews pulled from various sources across the web to enhance its suggestions and understanding of the places people are saving. Gomez-Hall says the list includes everything from high-end sources, like the Michelin Dining Guide, to kind of “man on the street” recommendations, like the kind of thing you’d see on Reddit.

This month, Zest is launching a new feature that allows anyone to write something in a freehand note about a place, like how to get a reservation, what dish to order, or other general thoughts. It’s also set to launch a “Fresh Picks” feature that will work similar to Spotify’s Discovery Weekly playlist, but you can try new restaurants around your city.

Over time, the Zest team wants to expand beyond restaurants to include other types of hotspots in the city.

“When we named the company Zest because it was a reference to food, but it wasn’t 100% food. It’s like ‘joie de vivre’, exploration, and I think in the long term, we can see a world where we add shopping,” Gomez-Hall points out.