Zest unveils restaurant discovery app using real dining data

A new startup is betting that what you actually spend your money on , not just what you say you like , holds the key to finding better restaurants. Zest, a restaurant discovery app that launched publicly this month, uses real transaction data combined with AI-driven personalization to recommend places based on where people genuinely eat, drink, and grab coffee.

Founded in November 2024, Zest has already secured $1.8 million in pre-seed funding from prominent investors including Alexis Ohanian at 776 and Steve Jang at Kindred Ventures. The app has been in beta testing since nearly its inception, gradually expanding from a small circle of friends and family to larger test groups. Now open to the public, Zest has attracted over 100,000 visits in just a few weeks and continues to grow rapidly.

While many existing apps let users create dining wishlists or share curated favorites, Zest differentiates itself by grounding its suggestions in verified, real-world behavior. To get started, users link a credit card to the app through Plaid, the same financial services company trusted by banks and budgeting tools. Zest then imports only the food and drink transactions from that card, building a personal dining map that users can choose to share with others. Fast-casual and fast food are excluded to keep the map focused and clutter-free.

As the app learns where you dine and what you enjoy, its personalized recommendations become smarter and more tailored. You can also follow friends or creator-curated profiles to discover new spots, whether in your hometown or while traveling. The concept builds on the social sharing impulse that platforms like Venmo have already normalized, but Zest aims to go deeper.

Previous attempts at this model, such as the ill-fated startup Blippy, failed because they stopped at simply broadcasting purchase data. They never built a network that could learn and improve over time. Consumer attitudes have shifted since then, with people increasingly comfortable sharing data when they see clear value, as demonstrated by services like Apple’s Find My Friends and Snap Map.

“Our approach with Zest, by doing it via verified dining spend, 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,” says co-founder Mario Gomez-Hall, formerly Head of Design at the social calendaring app Saturn, which was acquired by Snap last year. His technical co-founder, Alex Moller, brings experience from Apple and other tech companies.

“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,” Gomez-Hall continues. “And we surface that because we see the frequency and the spend.”

This philosophy echoes Gomez-Hall’s earlier work with the music-focused social network Cymbal, which also aimed to connect people with similar tastes, regardless of whether they were real-world friends. He sees a parallel in dining, especially for people in cities with fewer options.

“With Zest, there’s a limited set of restaurants in any city. I’m lucky enough that I live in an area with tons of restaurants and new places opening,” he says, referring to the San Francisco Bay Area. “But if you are in a smaller town, there might be fewer. So it’s really all about curation and finding the neighborhood haunts, the hidden gems.”

To further enrich its suggestions, Zest pulls from over 80 million reviews across the web, ranging from high-end sources like the Michelin guide to more grassroots recommendations found on Reddit. This month, the app is rolling out a feature that lets users write freeform notes about a place, such as how to snag a reservation or which dish to order. It is also preparing a “Fresh Picks” feature, modeled after Spotify’s Discovery Weekly, which will serve up new restaurant recommendations tailored to each user’s city.

Looking ahead, the Zest team has ambitions that extend far beyond food. The company name was chosen deliberately to reflect a broader vision.

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