Your year in food, served.

Do it yourself

How to make a food year in review, with or without an app.

1. GatherSearch your camera roll for “food” or scroll month by month. Pull out one photo per meal worth remembering.
2. Pick a dish of the yearThe thing you ordered most, or the one you still think about. Both are fair; say which.
3. Name your regularThe place you went back to most. Count the visits if you can.
4. Count the new placesHow many first visits did you have? Which one surprised you?
5. Name your peopleWho you shared the most tables with, and the biggest table of the year.
6. Write a short letterThree sentences from the year to you: what it fed you, what it taught you, what to try next.

Served

What’s in a Served story.

PlateDiary does the gathering and counting for you. Each story is a run of bold, full-screen pages with your saves as the heroes:

• The cover and the count — saves, tables, places and days.
• Dish of the month (or year) — with how many times, and the runners-up.
• Places — your regular, and the places that were new to you.
• Company — who you shared the most tables with.
• Rhythm — for a year, which months you ate out most.
• Cuisine — when enough saves have one.
• The big table — the night with the most on it.
• Favorite — your best-rated save, with your own note.
• Table personality — picked from how you eat out.
• A letter from the month to you.
• A tall share poster for your story.

Timing

When your story appears.

A month’s story is ready once the month is over and it holds at least three saves; a year needs five. The month you’re in is never offered — it isn’t finished. On December 1st, Your year so far opens early, just in time for the season of recaps.

If you’ve already allowed notifications, a quiet “Story ready” note arrives at 10 a.m. on the 1st. PlateDiary never asks for notification permission just for this.

Optional

Words by PlateDiary AI.

Every page is made on your phone, and flipping through a story is free. PlateDiary AI can add the words: a title, your table personality in its own voice, and the letter — the one page that needs AI. Without AI, the personality still appears, picked on your phone from patterns like going back to one spot, trying new places or eating late.

Non-members can use one of their ten free tries; members who have agreed get the words written as the story opens. What goes up is counts and names — your top dishes, places, companions’ first names and a few words of one note — never photos or locations. The words are kept on your phone, so the story opens offline afterwards, and they’re written in English.

Sharing

Share a page, or the whole poster.

Share any single page, or the tall summary poster made for stories. Your photos stay in your diary; what you share is a picture you chose to make.