Zest, a restaurant discovery app that builds personalized recommendations from users’ real dining transactions, launched to the public in 2026 and has attracted over 100,000 visits in the weeks since its release.
Founded in November 2024, Zest links to users’ credit cards via Plaid to import their food and drink purchases, creating a personal dining map that others can follow. The app uses that transaction data alongside AI to surface recommendations based on where users actually eat — including frequent visits to neighborhood staples — rather than manually curated lists. Fast food and fast-casual chains are excluded to reduce clutter.
The San Francisco Bay Area-based startup has raised $1.8 million in pre-seed funding from Alexis Ohanian at 776 and Steve Jang at Kindred Ventures. Co-founder Mario Gomez-Hall previously served as Head of Design at Saturn, a social calendaring app acquired by Snap. 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 said. “And we surface that because we see the frequency and the spend.”
In addition to transaction-based recommendations, Zest draws on more than 80 million reviews sourced from across the web, ranging from the Michelin dining guide to Reddit. Users can also follow friends or creator profiles for dining suggestions at home or while traveling.
Zest is rolling out two new features in June 2026: freeform notes on individual restaurants and a “Fresh Picks” feature designed to recommend new places to try, modeled on Spotify’s Discovery Weekly playlist.
Gomez-Hall said the company eventually plans to expand beyond restaurants into other categories such as shopping, describing the name Zest as a deliberate nod to broader city exploration rather than food alone.
Source: TechCrunch