I get you, foodies. You hop onto one of those mega restaurant review sites—you know, the ones where everyone and their grandmother can contribute to a a restaurant’s rating—and immediately realize that you cannot trust the masses. I know because I’ve been there. Crowdsourcing is completely amazing for some things but, if you ask me, restaurant recommendations are better curated. Enter Taste Savant.
Taste Savant is a highly curated restaurant discovery site and iOS app that’s aiming to be the anti-Yelp. Because, to be honest, the savviest diners completely ignore Yelp restaurant reviews.
Instead of listing every restaurant under the sun and allowing every person on the planet to have their say, Taste Savant starts with a thousand restaurants, from the hottest new spots to not-to-be-missed dives, and bases the rating for each on reviews from people you can trust. This includes restaurant critics, food bloggers (thank you very much), and your own friends.
A good excuse to be sure that your friends have good taste. Or at least the ones you follow on social media, since they’re well integrated into your recommendations if you choose.
Taste Savant allows you to search for restaurants by neighborhood, price, cuisine or occasion (date night, business meeting, you name it.) You can post a review, but it will have to be approved before it’s posted, which helps keep the site well-curated. You can also click on a restaurant’s page to make reservations, see the menu, place a delivery order, or even get deals.
It’s like a cross between Seamless, Open Table, Zagat and Trip Advisor. Which, if it flies, can be a category changer.
You can even use the Taste Savant concierge service, which is a fancy way of saying that you can ping Taste Savant on Twitter or Facebook with questions or ask for suggestions and they’ll hand pick dining options for you. Yelp definitely doesn’t do that.
Taste Savant is live in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Boston with more cities to come.
