About plate.ist
The problem with food discovery
Review platforms
Yelp and Google mix food quality with service, parking, and ambiance. A 4.5-star restaurant might have mediocre carbonara but great service. Ratings tell you nothing about specific dishes.
Social media
Instagram and TikTok are great for inspiration but impossible to search. You can't ask "best ramen within 2 miles"—recommendations get lost in infinite scroll.
AI search tools
ChatGPT and Perplexity give you a single answer with hidden reasoning. You can't see why they recommended something or adjust the results to match your preferences.
Has some of the best local recommendations—but they're buried in threads, unstructured, and require significant effort to find and compare.
How plate.ist works
1. You search for a dish and location
Enter what you want to eat and where—from broad ("pizza in NYC") to specific ("Neapolitan pizza in East Village"). Our search adapts to your specificity.
2. We analyze Reddit in real-time
AI reads relevant Reddit posts from food-focused subreddits, extracting restaurant names, specific dishes, sentiment, and the actual quotes people wrote.
3. Results are ranked transparently
Each recommendation is scored based on how often it's mentioned, how positive the sentiment is, and how recent the posts are. You see exactly why each place ranks where it does.
4. You customize the algorithm
Adjust the ranking weights yourself. Want hidden gems? Lower the popularity weight. Looking for tried-and-true favorites? Increase it. The algorithm is yours to control.
Why we start with Reddit
Reddit isn't perfect, but it has valuable food recommendations that are hard to find elsewhere. The challenge is that this information is scattered across threads and difficult to aggregate—that's where we come in.
Community-driven
Recommendations come from real people sharing their experiences, not sponsored content.
Dish-specific advice
People often discuss specific dishes, not just restaurants. "Get the spicy miso ramen."
Local knowledge
City subreddits often have locals sharing spots that don't show up on mainstream lists.
Honest opinions
The community tends to be direct about what's good and what's overrated.
Privacy
We don't track you beyond what's necessary for rate limiting (we hash your IP address). We don't sell data. If you submit a social handle or email, we only use it for the purpose you specified.
Ready to find your next great meal?
Search for any dish in any city—we'll show you what Reddit actually recommends.
Start searching