HP TECH TAKES /...
Exploring today's technology for tomorrow's possibilities
Subscribe
Best Foodie Apps to Have on your Phone
Dwight Pavlovic
|
February 8, 2023
Looking for an easy way to search for restaurants or make a dinner reservation? In our list of the best food apps, we found the top options to make finding your next favourite restaurant a breeze. From restaurant suggestions to making reservations to getting takeout or groceries, it’s all in our guide.
While most of our recommendations are third-party mobile apps, we’ve included some great branded options featuring rewards programs. These build loyalty for the restaurants, streamline ordering, and help you earn a free meal or discount.
1. Zomato
Zomato is one of the most popular restaurant and review aggregators around. As of this publish, the app maintains a 4+ star rating in the Google Play store with more than 5 million reviews. It’s also been around for a long time in one form or another, with roots in India circa 2008.
While Zomato was founded as a repository for menus, it has expanded well beyond that. You can now build a meal and order it from local restaurants for delivery from Zomato. It has in-app offers for specials in your area, too. It even boasts a restaurant slot machine feature that provides surprise recommendations for those nights when “What are we having tonight?” is the last conversation you want to have.
2. OpenTable
OpenTable was initially designed to help San Francisco residents make reservations at their favourite local restaurants. It now has a presence throughout the United States and across the globe, and it is a great food and travel resource.
Like other services, OpenTable asks you to enter basic parameters like date and time, location, and number of people in your party. It then produces a list of available tables. Instead of searching from one restaurant to the next, the results provide a range of different restaurants with availability and tables that match your details.
3. Slice
For the pizza lovers out there, there’s an easy way to narrow your search down for that next slice (no pun intended). Slice makes ordering and delivery easy, and even provides tech support and guidance for listed pizzerias. From a user perspective, the app is a simple way to discover and find out more about local pizza joints.
You can also search by pizza types, which may contain a few surprises. Slice’s categories range from thick or thin crusts to niche favourites like pizza capricciosa. It’s not only a great resource for your next trip to New York or Chicago, it’s useful no matter where you’re located.
4. Instacart
Riding a huge boost in growth over the last two years, Instacart is one of the biggest grocery delivery services out there. Instacart allows you to shop for groceries through the app and get them delivered on the same day.
It may take some of the surprise out of shopping in the store – who can say no to a random ice cream purchase? – but you can always just use the service to obtain bigger, cumbersome items. That frees you up to shop casually for smaller items without a huge package of paper towels in tow.
5. Delectable
Delectable is made for wine lovers, as it provides a simple way to search and update your personal library of wines. If you’ve ever been daunted by the selection at your grocery store or wine shop, you need Delectable.
With this app, you can scan wine labels and search for reviews, get recommendations from experts, and even read through tasting notes. You can also contribute your own reviews and help expand the wine index for other users.
6. Foursquare City Guide
Foursquare provides location-based recommendations for a variety of categories. Those include food, coffee, nightlife, fun, shopping, and breakfast. You can also filter to see top picks and trending options.
Part of the appeal of Foursquare is its personalized recommendation feature, which builds on your history to provide more relevant suggestions. It’s also comprehensive and covers numerous niches, making it a great app for both food and travel planning.
7. Deliveroo
If you spend a lot of time in the U.K. or are planning a visit, Deliveroo is a popular ordering and delivery app. It even provides a subscription service for free delivery on orders above a certain amount. The silver option covers orders above $25, and gold covers orders as small as $10.
While it’s based in the U.K. and the subscription service is limited to its home market, Deliveroo has a footprint in the rest of Europe and other locales.
8. Resy
Similar to OpenTable, Resy’s primary function is to help you book reservations. However, it stands out thanks to its partnerships and integration with other apps, like its collaboration with Airbnb.
If you use Airbnb, you can access many of Resy’s benefits from within the Airbnb app. This makes it easy to look up nearby restaurants and book a table in your preferred time frame, without downloading another app to your phone.
9. Yelp
With a broad range of listings and a huge archive to browse, Yelp is a very popular app for foodies and travelers. Visiting a new city? Recently moved? Just enter your preferred search parameters to see the options around you.
Yelp’s coverage is extremely thorough and boasts user reviews and ratings to help guide you to our next meal. It also gives you an idea of how much you’ll spend with price range info indicated by $ icons.
Yelp is also a convenient way to get takeout delivered. The system is streamlined and integrated within the site and app, so you can use it on just about any device.
10. DoorDash
According to Bloomberg Second Measure, DoorDash is the biggest ordering and delivery service in the US by market share as of 2021. Their research found that DoorDash processed and delivered more than half of meals sold through apps since 2018.
For frequent users, there’s a DashPass subscription service that cuts out delivery fees. You can pay monthly or annually, and it provides unlimited free deliveries on all orders over $12 at participating restaurants.
11. UberEats
Spun off the popular ride-sharing app, UberEats is a food ordering and delivery service. You can search for restaurants, place orders, track delivery, and handle payment directly through the app.
UberEats has a much wider global distribution than most of the competition. As of this publish, you can use it in 32 countries, with a growing footprint in Europe. For example, UberEats added new cities in Germany during Summer 2021.
12. Yummly
Yummly is designed to help users shop and cook more in tune with their dietary and nutritional preferences. It provides personalized food recommendations based on your input. You then receive recipes with step-by-step tutorials to help you in the kitchen.
Yummly also includes a shopping and delivery feature, so you can handle everything from a single interface. The app remembers what you buy and what you already have, too, based on your meal plans.
13. Fooducate
Fooducate was founded as a way to help users navigate health concerns and shop smarter, and it provides a more critical review of the products you use. With the app, you can scan barcodes and view information from Fooducate’s database, including a letter grade and suggestions based on your searches.
You can also view healthy recipes thanks to Fooducate’s strong focus on diet management and helping meet weight loss goals. The app flags ingredients that manufacturers typically don’t want you to see, too, like high-fructose corn syrup, added sugars, trans fats, and preservatives.
14. Your favourite restaurant or takeout
In addition to the above options, you can often find apps for local restaurants and nationwide chains. Most include features beyond rewards, too, allowing you to order meals for takeout.
For example, fast food restaurant apps from Pizza Hut and Mcdonald's make it easy to place an order and pick it up while earning points toward free food or free drinks. You can also customize your order through the app.
Summary
As you can tell from our list of the best food apps, there are many ways to get your next meal directly through your phone. From comprehensive apps like Zomato and Yelp, to delivery options like DoorDash and UberEats, to health-minded apps like Yummly and Fooducate, there are lots of options to fill your plate.
