Zest Introduces Restaurant Discovery App Based on Real Dining Habits

A new startup is looking to change how people find their next favourite restaurant. Zest, a recently launched restaurant discovery platform, combines transaction data with artificial intelligence to deliver personalised dining recommendations based on where people actually spend money on meals, coffee, and drinks.

Founded in November 2024, Zest has already secured $1.8 million in pre-seed funding from investors including Alexis Ohanian’s 776 and Steve Jang’s Kindred Ventures. The company has been testing the product since shortly after its founding, gradually expanding access from friends and family to broader groups of users.

The app is now available to the public, allowing anyone to track their dining history and receive customised restaurant suggestions. According to the company, Zest has attracted more than 100,000 visits in the weeks following its public launch and continues to see growing interest.

While several existing apps allow users to save restaurant wishlists or organise favourite spots, Zest says its key advantage is that its recommendations are built on real-world spending behaviour. Users connect a credit card to the platform, which then imports restaurant visits and creates a personalised dining map that can be shared with others.

As the platform gathers more information about where users eat and what types of places they enjoy, its recommendation engine becomes more tailored. Users can also follow friends, tastemakers, and creator-curated profiles to discover dining suggestions in their local area or while travelling.

Credit card information is imported through financial technology company Plaid, a service widely used by banks, budgeting applications, and fintech platforms. Zest accesses transaction data and extracts only purchases related to food and beverages while ignoring unrelated spending.

The concept may sound unusual, but it follows a trend that has proven successful elsewhere. Venmo, for example, transformed everyday transactions into a social experience by allowing users to share spending activity with friends. Earlier internet startups also experimented with turning purchase histories into recommendation networks.

According to Zest, the difference is that previous attempts focused primarily on sharing purchase data rather than building systems that could learn from those behaviours over time. The company also believes consumer attitudes toward data sharing have evolved significantly as people have become accustomed to services such as Apple’s Find My Friends, Snap Map, and other location-based social products.

“Our approach with Zest, by doing it via verified dining spend, is that we actually think that we surface more places that are actually interesting. Instead of it being about social posturing and sharing that you went to this Michelin star restaurant or that,” said Zest co-founder Mario Gomez-Hall, who previously served as Head of Design at social calendaring platform Saturn before its acquisition by Snap. Technical co-founder Alex Moller brings experience from Apple and other technology companies.

Gomez-Hall argues that spending patterns reveal the places people genuinely enjoy rather than simply the locations they want others to see.

“It’s actually more about your regulars and the spots that are the ‘hole in the wall’ — the burrito spot that you love and is dependable,” he said. “And we surface that because we see the frequency and the spend.”

The concept builds on lessons Gomez-Hall learned from an earlier startup called Cymbal, which focused on music discovery. Both ventures share a similar goal: connecting people who have similar tastes, even if they are not part of the same social circles.

“With Zest, there’s a limited set of restaurants in any city,” Gomez-Hall explained. “I’m lucky enough that I live in an area with tons of restaurants and new places opening. But if you are in a smaller town, there might be fewer. So it’s really all about curation and finding the neighbourhood haunts and hidden gems.”

To strengthen recommendations, Zest also incorporates more than 80 million reviews collected from a wide range of online sources. Gomez-Hall said those sources range from established guides such as Michelin to community-driven recommendations commonly found on platforms like Reddit.

The company is preparing to launch additional features this month. One update will allow users to add freeform notes to restaurant listings, sharing information such as reservation tips, recommended dishes, or personal impressions of a venue.

Another upcoming feature, called Fresh Picks, will function similarly to Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist by regularly recommending new restaurants users may want to try in their city.

Over the longer term, Zest sees opportunities beyond food and dining.

“When we named the company, we named it Zest because it was a nod to food, but it wasn’t 100% food,” Gomez-Hall said. “It’s like a ‘zest for life,’ exploration, and I think longer-term, we could totally see a world where we add shopping.”

For now, the company is focused on building a recommendation network around dining habits. Still, its broader ambition is to help people discover the best experiences their cities have to offer.