orz
King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2026
- Posts
- 840
- Reputation
- 1,289
why im making this
picking good restaurants is incredibly difficult and i dont like wasting money. google and yelp are completely unreliable now. the people on those platforms are low iq, have no palate, or simply dont go out often enough to have a valid opinion. they will give a spot 5 stars because the waitress gave them an extra breadstick, or 1 star because they couldnt find parking. i've also never see anyone bring up this topic, even though it's integral to slaying. if you actually care about food and vibes, you need to download the Beli app.
use cases
dates
this is the most important one. finding a spot with good food is make-or-break for a first or second date. Beli lets you filter places by exact cuisine and rating so you dont accidentally take her to a shitty tourist trap. you can check the map, see exactly what the atmosphere is like, look at uploaded photos of the actual food and lighting. it makes you look like a guy who knows his city and has good taste.
friends
if you go out with groups, you know the hour-long argument of "where should we eat? i dont care, what do you want?" Beli fixes this entirely. you can easily find a spot quickly or look at your bookmarked "want to try" places.
who will get the most benefit out of this
it's best for nyc, chicago, la, and san francisco ppl. the top-ranked lists are incredibly dialed in for those cities. there are also highly populated lists for boston, dc, philly, toronto, and london. but honestly, americans in general will benefit because the sample size has gotten massive over the last couple of years. the app has tens of millions of reviews across tens of thousands of cities.
however, it's also applicable to foreign people and traveling. a good chunk of the user base is outside the us, and it's incredibly useful if you're taking a vacation to somewhere like seoul, tokyo, or paris and need a vetted list of spots instead of relying on tripadvisor tourist traps. basically any major global city has enough data to be useful.
how the app works (and why its better than all other options)
the reason beli actually works is because it doesnt use a dumb 5-star system. when you log a spot, you just say if you liked it, if it was fine, or if you didn't like it. then, the app forces you to do a head-to-head comparison with places you've already been to. for example, it will ask "did you like nobu more or less than sushi nakazawa?" it forces a true ranking and spits out a highly accurate 0-10 score that is mathematically calibrated to your actual taste. the people on here are also mostly gen z and foodies, so its a much better sample than yelp/google.
this builds a personalized tier list and a "taste profile" for you. you add your friends, share bookmarks, and build a map of places you want to try based on people whose taste you actually trust. you can also see your "match score" with your friends to see if your palates actually align.
how to search for a restaurant properly
watch the video above to see exactly how i filter through the map. basically, you open the map view, zoom into the neighborhood you want to take your date to, and search to look at the pins. you can filter by price, cuisine, and tags like "date night." a rule of thumb is that a score above 7.5 in a major city is going to be good food.
other things you can do
optimize your ig/tiktok algo
if you want to naturally find good spots, follow people like eliot frost or judy thelen (the founders) via their official social media account @beli_eats on instagram and tiktok. once you follow them you'll probably start getting more food influencers/food views in genearl. you can also follow the top-ranked locals on your city's beli leaderboard and watch what they save. beli also lets you easily add stuff from what you've seen on social media. if you're scrolling and see a cool restaurant video, you can add it straight to your beli "want to try" list so you dont forget it.
cross-reference influencers
never blindly trust an influencer's paid promo. they get free food to lie to you and tell you a mediocre burger is life-changing. whenever you see a spot hyped up online, search it up on beli immediately and confirm its actual rank.
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