SALT - Your Personal, Shareable Journal Of Great Restaurants

Gathering around a warm meal is one of the most basic social experiences, so making SALT a bit more interactive and fun felt important to building a community within the app. With this in mind, we are excited to introduce two great ways to use SALT to interact with your friends within SALT and externally on Facebook.    

There is nothing better than stumbling on a great recommendation from a friend or getting an insider tip on what to get at a place you’re visiting for the first time. Now you can show your friends love for their suggestions by liking any of the places/tips they've provided on SALT. 

Additionally, now when you find a place you want to try or discover a new gem that you want share with your friends, you can easily post it to Facebook. Simply tap the Facebook button just prior to saving the place and it’ll post your recommendation to your Facebook feed. 

From the start, making it easy to see recommendations from tastemakers you trust has been a key piece of our vision for SALT. With that in mind, we have been working to spotlight tastemakers both within the SALT community and oustide to provide great recommendations wherever you are in the world. You can now add some of your favorite food publications as a friend on SALT, including Eater, Thrillist, goop, Diners Drive-ins and Dives, Grub Street and many more to come!    

As a friend, you’ll be able to see all of their favorite restaurant ideas, a short blurb on the place, and a link to read their entire article. This is especially handy when visiting a new city. And if you think you know the food scene in your own city (or know someone who does) and you’d like to become a local expert on SALT, shoot us an email to let us know.    

We’re excited to announce the latest evolution of SALT! The team has been hard at work designing, building, and testing "SALT 4.0". We’re incredibly proud of the final product and our latest step towards our mission of building a platform centered around recommendations from you, your friends, and tastemakers you trust. If you haven't checked out SALT in a while now is the perfect time to give it a look. We’re pretty sure you’ll like what you see.    

Below are some of the new things included:  

A “Super Filter” that allows you to filter by categories, lists and more (your lists are now here)

Map centric view

The ability to invite and add friends easily

A new profile screen that you can personalize to your style

The ability to easily see all of your friends’ favorite restaurants and their profiles

The ability to quickly see Google search results on any place you have saved

And much more

Sometimes words aren't enough

Hey SALT'ers,

We know adding your own photos to the places you have saved is something many of you have wanted for a loooong time. So we're excited to announce that you can now save all your favorite #foodporn, photos with friends, and any other memories from your adventures to your SALT account!

We won't waste your time with the details and just let you check it out for yourself. If you have any suggestions on how we can make photos better, please let us know.

We're striving to be at a higher level

As each year begins, Rudd and I take some time to reflect on what we have learned from the previous year and plan for the year ahead (if interested, this was from last year). We like sharing this with all of you, good or bad, because SALT has never been just an app to us; it’s been a community where together we’re building something we hope will be magical, different and lasting.

This year a consistent theme continued to come up. Though we made several important strides towards our mission of being the easiest way to remember and share great recommendations, and we continued to grow this amazing community, our big plans to take over the app world in 2016 didn’t quite hit the mark. Some of this was definitely within our control, some not, but no matter how you slice it, as founders, it’s disappointing.

Fortunately this party is far from over!

We may not have hit the mark for world domination this year, but the entire team is as enthusiastic and determined as we have ever been. And though not every step of 2017 and beyond is completely certain, we have a clear vision for SALT’s future and we’re excited to have all of you with us on this adventure.

Each day many of you send us “thank you” emails (and the occasional tweet) to let us know that you appreciate what we’re building. As a group, who honestly puts their heart and soul into what we build, this may be is the best part of our job! Hearing how SALT turned a failed group dinner into a fun evening or how it’s made figuring where to dine for “date night” easy, makes the countless hours at the office feel well spent.

With that said, we’d like to leave off by saying that the team at SALT isn’t slowing down and we’re 110% determined to build the BEST food app ever created. We mean it, that's the target we're aiming at - the best! We simply ask that you continue to be part of this mission and the community. If you have ideas, complaints, questions or anything else, let us know. Feel free to reply to this email, stop by the office, or if you prefer, contact Rudd or I directly (available in the email sent).

Cheers to 2017! We promise this party isn’t done yet and we’re excited for the fun times ahead.

Sincerely,

The team at SALT has been hard at work making SALT better than ever and we’re nowhere close to stopping. That said, we have lots of big and small updates to share. So if you have a minute, we’d like to tell you about them and how you can get the most from the new SALT!

It's easier than ever to save places anywhere in the world - now if you move the map to a particular part of a city or even a completely different country, when you tap “Add Place” it will search that area. Great for planning vacations!  

New list view design - the new list view on the home screen makes it easier than ever to quickly see details on any of the places you've saved and determine which of your places is perfect for what you’re planning. Plus, we simplified the list view header (swipe left and right to switch between your places and your friends places).

Reactions  - is there a great place you’ve been wanting to try and a friend has it on their to try list as well? Ask them to go or what to get via SALT by using reactions!

Menus - we’ve begun rolling out restaurant menus. You should start seeing more of them appear in the next few days and weeks.

Wrong/missing info on a place - you can now you can correct/add all of this information by tapping share/edit on the place detail screen!

SALT is now better with friends - this isn’t brand new but if you haven’t given it a shot we highly recommend trying it. Being able to add friends and see of all of the places they saved plus their notes is a game changer, especially when you’re in a new area. You’ll no longer need to rely on a random Yelp review :)

Lastly, we’re in the process of launching “Featured SALT Profiles”. If you’re interested in joining the program and being one of SALT's go-to accounts for great recommendations, reply to this email letting us know you’re interested. We're looking for high quality accounts with great places, useful lists, descriptive notes, and a solid number of friends who've already added you. To get an idea of what we mean, check out the “salt” account!

Sharing where to eat is just a tap away

Figuring out a place for dinner with your friends or where to meet a business contact for coffee often occur over text messages. To help make this process as easy as possible, the team at SALT decided to build an iMessage app!

The brand new, SALT iMessage app makes it even more seamless to directly send any of your favorite spots from your list of saved places to your friends. And even if your friends don’t have SALT (😟 ), they can see a quick preview of the place in their browser!

We also updated a few other items that many of you requested.

Customizable share messages - we made it simple to customize any message you send your friends via SALT. Plus, they're now sent from your phone number :) Customize and add additional place details - suggest changes to be made for any of your saved places, including the restaurant's phone number, website and pricing details. Tap "share/edit" on the place detail screen > tap More (if you have connected your contact book) > tap Suggest an edit. We should have another update coming soon with an exciting new home screen design. Keep an eye out! The team is constantly working on new ways to make SALT easier and more fun to use, so if you have any ideas, feel free to reach out. The SALT team

If you’re visiting us from goop and looking for where to get the SALT app, you can check us out at, trysalt.com!

A lot's cooking at SALT!

It has been awhile, but we certainly haven’t slowed down. We've been hard at work, focusing on making SALT more social and fun and recently released a bunch of new features. These are three of our favorites:

Finding and sharing with your friends via your contact book. You can now connect your contact book to see which of your friends are on SALT or easily invite them. Once connected, it's seamless to share lists, places or your profile with anyone in it! Just tap any of the share or find friend buttons in the app to connect your contact book.

Check out your friends' notes on their favorite spots. Once you follow your friends on SALT, you can view their notes on the place - what to eat, drink or maybe something else fun :)

Recommend places directly to your friends that they can save with one tap! Now when you discover a great new spot to recommend, you can send your friends a link to view the place (even without the app) and save it to their SALT list. "SALT-it to me!"

We are committed to making the SALT the most fun way to share recommendations between friends, family and tastemakers you trust. We hope you like what we've done thus far and excited to see what's next. If you love SALT and want to assist, please leave us a review in the App Store, or if you have any suggestions on how we can spread the word, shoot us an email! Thank you :) Sincerely,

The SALT crew!

Dining out has always been a social experience. Unfortunately, the process of determining where to go hasn't been. Today marks the first day that this is no longer true; SALT is taking its first step at making recommendations more collaborative and social between YOU and YOUR FRIENDS.

With SALT, the next time you're in a new part of town or need a new date spot, you won't need to crossyour fingers with a Yelp recommendation or text friends hoping they'll reply in time. All you have to do is pull out SALT and it'll show you all the places you've saved and all the places your friends have saved.

To get started Go to your profile screen and make sure to add a SALT username and picture. Once you’ve done that, you can share your account with your friends (tap the share button on the top right of the profile screen). And don’t forget to ask your friends for their SALT account too. Once you add them, you'll automatically see all of their favorite spots right on the map or in your list...boom :) So assemble your crew and have fun exploring some amazing new restaurants, bars and cafes! 

-SALT Team

Hi SALTers and friends,

If you haven’t already, make sure to get the latest update of SALT in the App Store! This update is all about you and your feedback. We heard your comments and suggestions and have made SALT better because of it. There are three big changes to this update:

1. A new, smaller, sleeker font! It’s still has that journal feel that you can easily glance at and sort through, but you can now see more places quickly.

2.Visible restaurant names in map view. You no longer need to tap each pin you’ve saved to see the name of the place. As you zoom in and out, the pin names become visible!

3. Deep search. We've made the search your saved places button more accessible by moving it to the homescreen, plus we made it capable of not only searching your saved places by their name, but also any notes you’ve made!

And if you have a iPhone 6S or 6S+ there are a bunch of new 3D touch features packed into the latest version!

Lastly, we created a quick survey (max two minutes to complete). We'd love your feedback.

We have a ton of fun stuff coming in the next few weeks so keep an eye out! And please keep spreading the word about SALT.

We’re thrilled to share our most innovative and exciting feature to date - @savetosalt! At SALT we’re constantly focusing on how we can make remembering and sharing great restaurants, bars and cafes seamless and fun. Our goal is to make determining where to eat or drink effortless, so you can focus on what’s important - enjoying the moment with those you love. And with @savetosalt we’re one step closer to achieving that goal!

We know Instagram is an important place where many of you discover great new places to try from friends, family or tastemakers you trust. With @savetosalt the next time you see a tasty dish at a restaurant you'd like to visit, you can add that place to your SALT list without leaving Instagram! How?

Once connect your SALT account to Instagram (check the settings screen in the latest update), anytime you see a photo at a great restaurant, bar or cafe that's geo-tagged on Instagram, simply like the photo AND mention "@savetosalt" in the comments and that place (and the IG account that recommend the place) will get added to your SALT list in 2/3 minutes automatically!!    

*what it looks like in SALT when added

This has NEVER been done before by ANYONE..it's a bit of magic and a ton of hard work by the team at SALT.

Give it a shot! You'll never wonder where to eat or drink ever again.

We all love pretty food, right? It's difficult for most of us to escape scrolling through our Instagram feeds without seeing a photo or two of some kind of #foodporn. To help feed your appetite as well as appease your eyes, we carefully combed through the NYC food scene to share the best NYC restaurant Instagram accounts. These restaurants not only dish out great grub, but amazing pics too. By the end, you’ll definitely be planning your next visit and what to get there!

     Doughnut Plant - @doughnutplant

This NYC classic has been serving up some of best doughnuts since Ace Of Base was a thing. Fortunately for us they have survived the test of time slightly better and are still posting some of the best food porn of their delicious sweet treats.

Jack’s Wife Freda - @jackswifefreda

This Israeli restaurant is a New York favorite that regularly manages a line out the door for their green Shakshuka or one of their other incredible dishes. With two locations downtown, they’re a must for brunch and a quick snap of their beautiful food.

Buvette - @buvettenyc

No list about pretty things would be complete without the French! Buvette’s menu could make the simplest of eaters salivate. Unfortunately, looking at their photos is far easier than getting a seat at this West Village favorite.      

Barbuto - @barbutonyc

This west village staple not only serves up great Italian food, but they’re constantly posting some of the prettiest pictures of food on social media. And if you decide to peruse the other photos posted at Barbuto, you’ll likely see some gems from their staff as well.  

Dough - @doughdoughnuts

This original Brooklyn-only doughnut spot has been sharing photos of some of the best doughnuts in the east coast from their corner spot in Bed-Stuy. Now with a location in Manhattan and as a frequent vendor at Smorgasburg, there is always room for dessert!

Egg Shop - @eggshopnyc

There are eggs and then there is the Egg Shop. This Nolita destination boasts this breakfast favorite not only for the morning hours, but for lunch and dinner as well. If you take a pic there, don’t be surprised if you get a shoutout by their team. They’re regularly on the prowl.

Mok Bar - @mokbar_nyc

This Korean spot tucked away inside of the Chelsea Market serves up not only their own take on Ramen but some of the best food pics. And their Instagram account manager is super on top of it,  regularly chatting with their community or running photo contests to encourage diners to share their favorite pics.    

Two Hands - @twohandsnyc

The Australian food scene has definitely arrived in NYC. Especially when you’re sitting at Nolita’s Two Hands. Their bowls of the exotic fruit, Acai, have become the new healthy fruit rage. Plus, these bowls are so pretty it’s almost more fitting to take a photo than to eat.

Black Seed Bagels - @blackseedbagels

This bagel shop is the combined child of the founders of The Smile and Miles End Deli. Since they opened their doors in 2014 they have been making waves and are already opening their 3rd location. From their Instagram feed, it’s clear why!

Rosemary’s -  @rosemarysnyc

Rosemary’s is known for growing their own spices and for great Italian food, but they’re quickly being recognized for their equally memorable Instagram account. Don’t be surprised if you take a photo there and someone from their account says hi or reposts your photo.    

Momofuku - @momolongplay

Though the Momofuku brand has blown up across the US and abroad, this restaurant chain is deeply rooted to NYC’s East Village. Whether you have their pork buns or soft serve, their Instagram pics are sure to keep you craving for your next visit.

Chalk Point - @chalkpointnyc

Over the last few months we’ve worked intensely on improving the process of saving places and adding additional important features. To make sure all of you got the most out of your experience on SALT, we decided to quickly highlight a few of our biggest updates.

1. Supercharged filter

We ditched three state filter of “All”, “To Try” and “Visited” for a powerful and better designed filter. You can now also filter by price and whether a place is open. And if you hadn’t discovered the sorting tool earlier, we made it easier to find.

*By tapping on filter button on the top right, it will open the filter options shown below

*You can select any or all the filters. At the top it shows how many places fit the criteria applied

*Tapping on the “Sorted by” link (seen as “Recent” in the image above), displays the menu above

2. Improved process of marking places as visited

We know it’s import to be able to organize places by spots you have been to or places you want to try, so we made it even easier.  There are three different ways to do it now!

*Holding down “Save This Place” button will display the option to mark the place as Visited. Once the Visited button appears, slide your finger up to change the status of the place

*Once you have saved a place a menu at the bottom of the Place Detail screen will appear. By tapping on the middle button, “Marked Visited”, you can change a places status from To Try to Visited

*When you’re looking at any of your lists you can simply swipe, right to left which displays the option to quickly mark a place as Visited. It also displays the delete button which we know has been a little hard to find for some :)   

3. More place details

We know having more information at your fingertips on the places you’ve bookmarked is important so we added various additional place details. You can now find a location’s hours of operation, phone number, price details, website and address. And though we don’t have the ability currently to make a reservation in the app, you can always do it the old fashion way, via a phone call!

*Via the Place Detail Screen you can view most pertinent information, but if you tap on “Contact Info” you can see additional details (as shown below)

We also just created a FAQ to address any other major questions you may have and you can always email us directly with questions and feedback at, feedback [at] trysalt [dot] com.       

Jill A. Donenfeld is a writer, entrepreneur, and chef with recipes appearing in Food & Wine and articles in Men’s Journal and the Huffington Post. She oversees a private chef and catering agency in NYC, LA, and Chicago and produces bottarga for top purveyors and restaurants around the country. 

Jill recently released a new book called, Better on Toast, and just shared with the SALT community her top picks for toast dishes all over Manhattan! Enjoy :)

The East Pole (Upper East Side)

$$$ American (New), Bars, Vegetarian

What to get:

Roasted Garlic & Greens Toast

Peeky Toe Crab & Avocado Toast

Avocado Toast

The Wayfarer (Theater District)

$$$ American (New), Seafood, Breakfast & Brunch

What to get:

Avocado Toast, olive oil, lime, chili flakes, sea salt

Challah French toast, apricots, marzipan, vanilla bean

Co. (Company) (Chelsea)

$$ Pizza, Bars, Italian

What to get:

Cannellini Bean, Pancetta, anchovy

Chicken Liver, olive oil, thyme

Fire roasted eggplant, ginger cilantro

Tipsy Parson (Chelsea)

$$$ American (New)

What to get:

Avocado Toast, tomato jam

Smoked salmon toast

Mushroom toast

ABC Kitchen (Flatiron)

$$$ American (New), French

What to get:

Mushroom Toast, pecorino, lemon & herbs

Crab Toast, lemon aioli

Roasted Kabocha Squash Toast, fresh ricotta, apple cider vinegar

The Butcher’s Daughter (Nolita)

$$ Juice Bars & Smoothies, Cafe

What to get:

Avocado toast: special $2.00 deal

Il Buco Alimentari & Vineria (Noho)

$$$ Italian

What to get:

Avocado Toast, egg, anchovy, aleppo pepper, extra virgin, balsamic

Cha-An (East Village)

$$ Japanese, Tea Rooms

What to get:

Tea-Smoked Salmon Toast

Garden Toast with Melted Cheese

Grilled Salmon Toast

Raspberry Butter Toast

Red Ben Butter Toast (Add homemade ice cream scoop- jasmine tea, black sesame, green tea, mixed berry)

Bluestone Lane Collective Café (West Village)

$$ Cafes, Coffee & Tea

What to get:

Avocado: Balthazar toast with tahini, cherry tomatoes, feta, sunflower sprouts & evoo

Margaux (Greenwich Village)

$$ Cafes

What to get:

Sicilian Olive oil, Kriemhild Dairy Butter, Olives, Whipped Ricotta Sea Salt on Country Bread 

Chanterelle Toast, Camembert, Shallots 

Charcuterie, Rabbit Rillettes, Fennel Salami, Bresaola, on Sullivan St. Toast

For the entire list of Jill’s recommendations, check out her SALT list or her website.

Patty Lee is writer and editor who has covered NYC’s food and drink scene for publications like Zagat, Time Out New York, Thrillist and the New York Daily News. She grew up in Sunset Park, Brooklyn (and still lives in South Brooklyn) and loves exploring the food scene in the outer boroughs — she’s just as likely to check out the newest and hottest restaurant openings in Manhattan as she is the longstanding mom-and-pop shops of Bay Ridge and Jackson Heights. As you can probably tell from her feed, she’s also big on desserts!

Describe your ideal day in NYC...

It’d definitely start off with pastries and coffee from a place like Dough or Arcade Bakery, followed by an afternoon exploring different neighborhoods. Lately, I’ve been going to Elmhurst a lot. There’s this wonderful mix of Asian (Thai at Ayada, Malaysian at Taste Good) and Latin American (Argentinian at Boca Junior, Venezuelan at Patacon Pisao) restaurants, plus an equally diverse roster of ethnic markets, where I can pick up spices and snacks.

Don’t leave NYC without eating…

A real New York slice! For a true Brooklyn experience, head to Totonno’s, which has been slinging amazing thin-crust pizzas since 1924. It’s cash- and pie-only here and you shouldn’t expect any fancy toppings, real plates or even steady hours, but that’s all part of the no-fuss charm of this Coney Island institution.

When you want to grab a dinner you know you’re going to love what’s your go to and why?

Dumplings and noodles are my ultimate comfort foods and my recent go-to spot has been The Bao on St. Marks. Their soup dumplings are miles better than most of the other ones in Manhattan and the menu is big enough that there’s always something new to try.

Favorite bar or cocktail bar and what makes it so special?

Corkbuzz for the extensive wine list curated by sommelier Laura Maniec. It’s a multi-faceted operation — you can drink, have some great food or take classes — and the spot works for all kinds of occasions, whether it’s date night or girls night.

What’s your favorite type of food/cuisine and what’s your go to spot for it?

I have a huge sweet tooth and love Chikalicious for its great selection of both to-go and eat-in options. Items like the Bun Chika Bun Bun and tiramisu mochi make it back to Brooklyn with no problem, and if I’m craving something a little fancier, I’ll sit down at the East Village tasting counter for a plated dessert — chef Chika Tillman’s Fromage Blanc Island is one of the lightest and most unique cheesecakes in town.

For more of Patty’s recommendations, check out her SALT list or her website and Instagram.