How to find a restaurant you’ve been to, even if you forgot the name.

Method 1

Google Maps Timeline — now on your phone only.

If you had Google Maps Timeline (formerly Location History) turned on, it may already know. Big change: Google moved Timeline onto your device, rolling out through 2024, and it is no longer available in Maps on a computer. Old guides that say “open timeline.google.com on your laptop” no longer work.

1. Open the Google Maps appOn the phone you had with you that night.
2. Open Your TimelineTap your profile picture or initial, then Your Timeline.
3. Jump to the dayTap Today at the top, swipe the calendar to the right month and tap the day.
4. Or browse by placeSwitch to the Places tab at the top to see places you have visited, grouped together.

If it’s empty

Why your Timeline might be missing that night.

• It was never on. Timeline is off by default; it only knows about the time after you turned it on.
• Auto-delete removed it. Google’s change set new Timelines to auto-delete after three months by default. Older nights may be gone.
• You changed phones. Timeline lives on each device. Without the optional backup turned on, a new phone starts empty.
• You know the place but not when. Open the place in Google Maps, scroll to the bottom and tap “Your visits and Maps history” — it lists past visits if they are in your Timeline on that device.

Method 2

Search your photos by place.

If you took even one photo that night, its location is probably stored inside it. This is often the fastest route.

• iPhone (Photos app): tap Library, tap the Sort and filter button, then Show Map. Zoom to the neighbourhood and tap the photos there. Opening a single photo and swiping up shows the map and address where it was taken.
• Google Photos (Android and iPhone): tap Search and type the area or a thing in the photo — “dumplings”, “Shibuya”, “restaurant” — or open the Places collection to browse by location.
• Search by what you ate: both apps understand everyday things, so “noodles”, “pizza” or “cake” often finds the night faster than the place does.

Method 3

Your inbox, bank app and booking apps.

• Card or bank app: search the date. Restaurant charges usually show a business name — sometimes the company behind the restaurant rather than the sign over the door, so search that name on a map.
• Email: search “reservation”, “booking”, “your table”, “receipt” or “order” around the date. Booking apps and online receipts leave a trail.
• Ride and delivery apps: your trip history shows the drop-off address for the night out; your order history shows the restaurant for takeaway.
• Review history: if you reviewed it, your Google Maps profile lists your contributions.

Method 4

Ask the group chat (the right way).

Don’t ask “what was that place?” — nobody knows which one you mean. Give three clues: when (“the Friday after Mia’s birthday”), one dish (“the place with the black sesame ice cream”) and one detail (“tiny, had a neon sign of a fish”). Someone always has a photo.

Method 5

Remember the dish, not the name.

Searching a map for what you ate plus the area — “hand-pulled noodles Chinatown”, “Basque cheesecake Shoreditch” — and scrolling the photos in the results often finds it. Look for the interior or the plates you remember rather than the name.

Next time

How to never lose a restaurant again.

Every method above is detective work after the fact. The fix is to keep the place with the meal at the moment you eat it — in a restaurant journal, a map list, or an app that does it for you.

That is what we built PlateDiary Places for. You snap one photo of the table; each dish becomes a save filed under the place the photo was taken. Places lists every restaurant you have eaten at, and you can search it by place or by dish — type “dumplings” and see every place you have had them. Each place page shows your usual, every dish you have had there and every visit. Old photos can be imported too, and they keep their place.