A new startup aims to reinvent how people discover their next favorite place to eat and, one day, maybe more. Heata new one released restaurant discovery appuses a combination of transaction data and artificial intelligence to make 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 pre-seed funding from Alexis Ohanian at 776 and Steve Jang at Kindred Ventures. It’s been in beta testing almost since day one, expanding from friends and family to larger groups over time.
Now, the app has gone public, allowing anyone to track their dining outings and receive recommendations. Within weeks, Zest has attracted more than 100,000 hits since launch and counting.
While some apps allow people to create food wish lists or curate favorite places, of Zest The advantage is that its recommendations are based on real-world data. To use Zest, you’ll link your credit card to the app and it will import all the restaurants you’ve visited to create a personal food map that others can follow. (It doesn’t track fast or fast food, to reduce clutter.)
As the app learns where you dine and what you like, it gets smarter, making 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 you’re traveling if you choose.
Your credit card data is entered into Zest through your financial services company Plaidtrusted by banks and other fintech and budget apps. This allows the app to access your credit card transactions, enter only those in the food and beverage categories for its map, and discard the rest.
The idea is not as crazy as it seems. Venmo also taps into people’s desire to share where they shop and dine with others, turning spending into a social network. And in an earlier web era, a startup called Blippy tried to turn a stream of your purchases into a kind of recommendation network.
Where Blippy and others like it went wrong is that they stopped at just sharing data, instead of building a network based on the data that improved their understanding of user interests over time. Plus, it was probably too early, as consumer sentiment about data sharing has improved over time as they saw where it could add value to services like Apple’s Find My Friends, Snap Map, and others.
“Our approach with Zest, by doing it through verified food spending, we actually think we’re discovering more places that are really interesting. Rather than being about social attitude and sharing that you went to this Michelin star restaurant or that,” explains the Zest co-founder. Mario Gomez-Hallwho was previously Head of Design at social calendar app Saturn, which spun off from Snap last year. (Technical co-founder of Zest Alex Mollermeanwhile, he brings his experience at Apple and other tech companies to the new venture.)
“It’s really more about your patrons and the ‘hole in the wall’ spots — the burrito spot that you love and trust,” continues Gomez-Hall. “And we’re finding that out because we’re looking at frequency and spending.”
The idea behind Zest is based on his understanding of how curation-based social networks work, which Gomez-Hall learned from his previous startup. Cymbalfocused on music. Both companies were trying to connect people who have similar tastes, even if those people aren’t your actual friends.
“With Zest, there’s a limited set of restaurants in any city. I’m lucky enough to live in an area with a lot of restaurants and new places opening up,” he says, referring to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he’s now based after graduating from Tufts University in Boston. “But if you’re in a smaller city, it might be less. So it’s all about curating and finding the neighborhood gems, the hidden gems.”
In addition to recommendations, Zest leverages over 80 million reviews from various sources around the web to improve its recommendations and understand the places people save. Gomez-Hall says the list includes everything from top sources like the Michelin food guide to “man-on-the-street” recommendations like what you’d see on Reddit.
This month, Zest is launching a new feature that will let anyone write something in a free-form note about a place, like how to make a reservation, what dish to order, or other general thoughts. It’s also set to launch a “Fresh Picks” feature that will work kind of like Spotify’s Discovery Weekly playlist, but for new restaurants to try around your city.
Over time, the Zest team wants to expand beyond restaurants to curate other types of hot spots in the city.
“When we named the company, we called it Zest because it was a nod to food, but it wasn’t 100% food. It’s like an ‘appetite for life,’ exploration, and I think long-term, we could totally see a world where we add shopping,” notes Gomez-Hall.
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