Today is a major milestone for us, and I am incredibly excited to share it with you.
After months of building, refining, testing, gathering feedback, and rethinking what great dining discovery should feel like, Umamii is officially launching. What began as a simple frustration around finding a great place to eat has become a fully realized product shaped by thousands of conversations and real user insights.
How It Started
Like many of you, I love dining out. But over time, the same concerns kept coming up from friends, chefs, and diners across Vancouver and Toronto:
“Where are the best places to eat? I can’t trust these Instagram posts and reels anymore. Restaurant discovery has become overwhelming.”
There is too much noise. Too many lists. Too many conflicting opinions that do not reflect your taste. And it should not take ten minutes of searching to find somewhere you genuinely want to go.
So we built Umamii with a clear mission:
Help you find the right restaurant every time, with more confidence.
Watch Our Launch Video
Here is a first look at the new Umamii experience.
What We Are Launching Today
This is the public release of the new Umamii experience, built from the ground up around personalization, trust, and community. We now feature more than 5,000 restaurants across British Columbia and the Greater Toronto Area.
Here is what is new.
1. A smarter and more personal recommendation engine
Your Umamii experience now adapts to your tastes in real time. You can prioritize friends, chefs, publications, and award systems you trust such as the Michelin Guide and Google Reviews. Your results update instantly based on what matters most to you.
No generic lists. No guesswork. Just recommendations that feel right.
2. A brand new AI dining assistant v1
You can now ask Umamii anything, including:
• “Where should I take my parents this weekend?”
• “Find a cozy date night spot with good pasta.”
• “What new and trendy restaurant should I go to?”
Our AI assistant uses your tastes, trusted sources, location, and real reviews to deliver clear and thoughtful suggestions in seconds.
This is our first version. We have a strong roadmap ahead to make it smarter, faster, and even more personalized. Expect meaningful improvements every few weeks.
3. Group Dining v1, designed to help everyone agree
Planning a group meal is rarely simple. There are dietary needs, budgets, allergies, schedules, and preferences. Getting alignment is hard.
Group Dining v1 gives you a starting point. Add your group, share your tastes, and Umamii will highlight restaurants that work for everyone. You will also see a Fit Score that clearly explains why each restaurant fits or does not.
This is only the beginning. More is coming, including deeper preference matching, smarter location logic, improved Fit Score weighting, and new tools that make planning effortless.
4. A smoother and faster app
We rebuilt the foundations of Umamii to make everything feel faster, cleaner, and more consistent. This includes:
• improved search
• better onboarding
• a more accurate map view
• faster photo loading
• smoother review and feed experience
This is the most stable and polished version of Umamii we have ever released.
5. Now available across BC and the Greater Toronto Area
Whether you are in Vancouver, Whistler, Burnaby, Richmond, Toronto, Mississauga, Markham, or Hamilton, Umamii is ready for you.
With more than 5,000 restaurants featured, you can feel confident you will always find something great.
Why This Matters
Umamii does not just make restaurant discovery easier. It makes it personal. It makes it trustworthy. And it makes the entire experience more enjoyable.
We want to build a community where people can share what they love, elevate local restaurants, and rely on voices that truly matter to them.
With early versions of our AI dining assistant and Group Dining now live, we are setting the stage for a new way people choose where to eat. These features will evolve quickly, and your feedback will directly shape what comes next.
Thank You
To everyone in our beta who shared feedback, surfaced bugs, submitted reviews, and supported us throughout this journey, thank you. This product exists because of your belief in what we are building.
Today is only the beginning. I cannot wait for you to experience what is new and see what we have coming next.
The latest version of Umamii is now live.
Join the waitlist or update your app to start exploring.
iOS: App Store
Android: Google Play
