From one ‘Beli’ to another: Bringing the social aspect back to eating out

Editor’s Note: This article is a review and includes subjective thoughts, opinions and critiques.

The end of the year comes with a familiar checklist: final exams, the (best) holidays and that unavoidable moment of reflection. Everyone around me was proudly showing off their Spotify Wrapped and the thousands of hours they spent listening to Lana Del Rey. Love her, don’t get me wrong, but the recap I was actually waiting for was my Beli Plated: the only year-end summary that brings joy to both my heart and my stomach.

Ilaria Chen ’26 perfectly summed up my appreciation for Beli: “I LOVE using Beli to justify my insane obsession with exploring new foods. It’s super cool seeing all my eats come together in recaps,” she wrote to The Daily. 

I couldn’t agree more.

Growing up, I’ve always been particular about food. Not picky in the “won’t eat it” way, but picky in the “this better taste good” way. Whenever my friends would suggest a restaurant they’d swear was amazing, I’d give a little side eye and say, “We’ll see.” I liked to think of myself as a mini food critic, skeptical but always ready to be impressed.

So when I discovered Beli, a food-ranking app launched in 2021, it felt like it was made for people like me. Designed to track, rank and share restaurant experiences, Beli turns eating out into a social, reflective and fun experience. 

For Intisar Alkhatib ’28, her favorite part of Beli is the way it “allows me to embrace my inner foodie.” Cami Yen ’29 likes how it “bridges my love for food and friends together.”

Part of that appeal comes from how authentic the app feels. Malcolm Abreu ’28 enjoys how Beli “lets you forget about the perfectionism of what you post online and allows you to just post your honest thoughts,” making the experience feel more personal and less performative.

At its core, Beli works as a digital food diary. Users log restaurants they’ve visited, upload photos and write short reflections on what they ate. Unlike other review platforms, users don’t just hand out scores out of ten. Instead, they rank new restaurants by comparing them to past ones, building a personalized record of their taste. For Dora Gan ’28, this feature removes pressure from the process: “Sometimes I can’t think of a score,” she said. “So it’s nice that the algorithm [ranks restaurants] for me.”

Functionally, Beli feels like a cross between Yelp and Instagram. Every logged restaurant appears on an interactive map that tracks where users have eaten over time. As the app collects more data, it learns users’ preferences and suggests new places they might enjoy.

“I feel that many users on the app tend to be around my age, so our tastebuds and budgets align more than the thousands of arbitrary Yelp reviews I see online,” Michelle Jin ’27 wrote to The Daily. “I love bookmarking new spots based on my friends’ recently recommended restaurants, especially in new countries or states I’m traveling to.”

But beyond recommendations, Beli’s social features are what draw me in. People can follow friends, compare rankings and view a “friend rating” for each restaurant, which averages all of a user’s friends’ scores. Scrolling through Beli feels less like reading reviews and more like catching up and seeing what everyone is up to. 

Marissa Liu ’27 described how “the social side of Beli is fun because I can see my friends’ tastes in food,” while Sofia Zhao ’26 praised the app for having a “fun social aspect while not being designed to be addictive unlike every other social media app.”

Over time, these food logs often turn into lasting memories for many people. When asked about the best restaurant he’s logged on Beli, Max Fan ’29 immediately named JinJoo in Jakarta, Indonesia. 

“[Dining at JinJoo] was a really personalized experience as we got to talk to the chefs as they prepared the courses,” he said. “They told us about everything from the ingredient selection process to their ordering of courses and even their own life experiences.”

As Beli continues to grow in popularity, it may change how people think about food and eating out. One bite, one restaurant and one rating at a time, the app can turn everyday dining into memorable moments. 

So, as we enter a new year of dining, try something new, log your meals and share your experiences. Every plate has a story, and with Beli, we get to savor it together.

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