Nº 1 A maître d' for the chronically undecided

Dinner,
decided by cross‑examination.

Ask. Answer. Eat.

Decide what to eat, cook it, or find it nearby. Delivery apps hand you four hundred listings and a few ads. Socrabites hands you questions — three to seven of them, all answered by tapping. With every answer, the maître d' strikes dishes off the menu, out loud, with the reason written beside each one, until a single verdict remains. Then it stays for dinner: the recipe, a shopping list scaled to your table, and a cook mode that sets the timers.

Coming soon on theApp Store Interrogate the app →

iPhone first, through TestFlight, then the App Store. One email when your seat is ready — nothing else.

  • 3–7 questions
  • 30 → 1 struck live
  • 0 sponsored tiles
  • 0 accounts
  • 1 verdict

↑ it's live — try it

Every question, strike and verdict runs in your browser on the app's real 30-recipe cookbook and 24-dish menu. Open full-screen →

How it works

A three-course decision.

First, in or out: a recipe from the house cookbook, or a dish type to find nearby. Then the questioning begins. Short on patience? Express mode is three questions, flat.

I.

The questioning

Effort, appetite, the occasion, flavor, what you're sick of. Each question is bounded and tappable — never a blank search box. Allergies and diets are asked first, once, and never bent.

II.

The striking

Every answer strikes dishes off the menu in front of you, with the reason written out. A live count runs from 30 down. When your answers contradict, it asks you to choose — and the loser falls.

III.

The verdict

One dish — not a shortlist, not a spin of the wheel — with “why this is your answer” traced back to your own words. Don't like it? Veto it, say why in one tap, and it stays off the menu until you pardon it.

After the verdict

Most apps leave when you've decided. This one stays for dinner.

Cooking in? The verdict opens into the recipe, a shopping list scaled to how many are eating, and a cook mode that reads the timers out of the steps. Eating out? One tap searches Apple Maps for the dish nearby — a search, not an ad.

The list, scaled to your table

Serves 4 becomes serves 2 or serves 7, and every quantity follows — halves, thirds and “1 can” that becomes “2 cans”. Tap what you already have and it leaves the list.

Lemon-Garlic Salmon & Asparagus4

    Cook mode sets the timers

    One step at a time, in type you can read from across the kitchen. A step that says “roast 20–22 minutes” gets a 20-minute timer, a step that only names an oven temperature gets none. The badge follows you to the next step.

    Step 2 of 3

    This one runs for real. Set it and scroll on — the badge in the corner keeps counting.

    Allergens, with the fine print read

    Every recipe carries what it contains and what might depend on the brand: flour tortillas that may contain dairy or soy, broth that may contain gluten. An allergen we can't rule out is never treated as safe. Where a reviewed swap exists, it's offered.

    • ⚠Contains gluten.
    • ?Check the label: flour tortillas may contain dairy, soy, depending on the brand.
    • ⇄Swap flour tortillas for corn tortillas labeled gluten-free to leave out gluten.
    • !These tags haven't had their final human sign-off yet.

    Your own dishes join the menu

    Type a dish, paste the family rotation as a list, or import a recipe from a link. Until you tag its protein and allergens, it counts as unknown — and unknown is never safe, so it sits out whenever an allergy or diet rule is on.

    Nan's StewBeef · no allergens
    Thai basil chickenNeeds tagging
    Friday pizzaNeeds tagging

    Own dishes, like everything else, stay on your iPhone. No account, no upload.

    The house cookbook

    Thirty recipes we own. Pick a rule and watch them fall.

    The beta ships with thirty original recipes, every one reviewed for the nine major allergens. Tap a rule below and the cookbook is struck the way the app would strike it — nothing is bent, nothing is hidden.

      Allergen tags are set by people, not guessed by an AI, and still carry a “no final sign-off” note until a second person has checked each one. The library grows to 150–300 reviewed recipes before 1.0.

      The feed vs. the dialogue

      The pain isn't hunger. It's the scroll before it.

      People don't hate choosing food. They hate unbounded choosing. Seven bounded questions feel like help; four hundred listings feel like homework.

      The delivery app Socrabites
      You start withA search box and an infinite feedA question you can answer in one tap
      You seeHundreds of tiles, some of them paidThe menu shrinking, with reasons
      Ranked byA mix of relevance, history and placementOnly your answers. Nothing is paid for.
      You end withA list of recommendations, pluralOne verdict and one button
      Why trust itYou don't know why it showed you thatIt shows its work: “you ruled out fried, you said fast, therefore…”
      ThenA cart, a tip screen, a courierThe recipe, the list, the timers — or a map search for it nearby
      Next timeThe same feed, scrolled againIt remembers your vetoes, so verdict #10 is faster than #1

      Incumbents earn from endless choice — placement and scroll time. Converging you to one answer in thirty seconds cuts against that model. Ours points the other way: the app is finished with you the moment you've decided, and only stays if you're cooking.

      Why now

      Four parts. Everyone else has three.

      A decider that works needs all four, wired together for a single meal. We mapped 21 products across the category; each covers some of the chain, and none we found shows you what it eliminated, or why.

      1. 01

        Question funnel

        Short, sequenced questions for this meal, instead of browsing.

        Elsewhere: onboarding quizzes only

      2. 02 · the empty chair

        Visible elimination

        You watch options get ruled out by your answers, and see why each one fell.

        Elsewhere: essentially unbuilt

      3. 03

        Single verdict

        One dish. Not a shortlist, not a spin.

        Elsewhere: a slogan, reached from a stored profile

      4. 04

        The handoff

        From verdict to the recipe, the list and the stove, or to a map search for it nearby, without reopening a menu.

        Elsewhere: at scale, but returns lists and carts

      Who's close, and what's missing

      Delivery-app assistants

      Conversational and wired to checkout, but they answer with recommendations, plural, and never show what was ruled out.

      “One answer” apps

      They promise a single verdict but get there in one step from a stored profile. No questions for tonight, no reasoning trail.

      Tournaments & group vetoes

      The only real elimination mechanics out there, decided by taps and votes with no stated reasons. Some never reach an order.

      General chatbots

      They can improvise a dialogue for free. They don't remember your vetoes, keep your allergies off their servers, or show what they ruled out.

      From our competitive landscape research, October 2026: public vendor sites, store listings and press. The window is a timing gap, not a concept gap — which is why we're building now.

      What's in the iPhone beta

      Cook in, or eat out. Either way, one answer.

      Cook in

      A verdict from a house cookbook of 30 original recipes, with the steps, a cost per serving, and a shopping list scaled to how many are eating. Share or copy the list; tap Plan it for tomorrow and it waits on the home screen.

      Cook mode

      One step per screen, a timer read out of each step, +1 minute when the pan disagrees, a haptic at zero and a notification if you've already allowed them. It never asks for permissions itself.

      Eat out

      A dish type, not an ad: “Find pho nearby” opens an Apple Maps search. The app never asks for your location, and says plainly that it's only a search.

      My dishes

      Type a dish, paste a list, or import a recipe page. Tag its protein and allergens and it's eligible like any other; leave it untagged and it's left out whenever a rule is on.

      Remembers your table

      Allergies, diets and who usually eats with you, set once by tapping. Next day, a one-tap “How was it?” turns hits into favorites and misses into vetoes.

      Private by design

      No account; everything stays on your iPhone. With Apple Intelligence, type what you're craving and it suggests answers on-device. You still tap each one, and it never touches your allergies.

      Not in the beta yet: ordering food, grocery carts, a week planner, and real restaurant menus. A paid Socrabites Household tier comes later; the dialogue, the core recipes and cook mode stay free.

      House rules

      A maître d' with principles.

      1. Placement never buys the verdict. There are no sponsored dishes. If we ever feature a restaurant, it will have to survive your eliminations, and it will be labeled.
      2. Every elimination is written down. The trail shows its work from the first question, including on your first night.
      3. Asked once, remembered always. Allergies, diets and who's at your table are saved on your iPhone with a few taps — never typed, never asked twice, never sent to us. Strike a verdict and it stays off the menu until you pardon it.
      4. Unknown is never safe. An allergen that depends on the brand counts as present. A dish you haven't tagged counts as containing all of them. We would rather serve you nothing than guess.
      5. Thirty seconds, or it failed. Every question has to earn its place. Express mode exists for nights when three questions is already two too many.

      Questions

      Asked, answered.

      When can I have it?

      iPhone first: a TestFlight beta this winter, then the App Store. Leave your email below and you'll get one message when a seat opens. No Android date yet.

      Is it an AI?

      The decision isn't. Every strike is a rule you can read in the trail, and the same answers always give the same verdict. Apple Intelligence is used for one optional thing: reading a typed craving on your iPhone to suggest which answers to tap. You still tap them, and it never touches allergies or diets.

      Does it order the food?

      Not yet. Cooking in, you get the recipe and a list you can share into any store's app. Eating out, you get an Apple Maps search for the dish nearby. Carts come later, labeled, and never ranked by who pays.

      Where does my data live?

      On your iPhone. There's no account to make and no server holding your allergies, your vetoes or your household. Analytics count taps on buttons, never dishes. Delete everything from the profile screen in one tap.

      Can I trust the allergen tags?

      They're set by people, never by an AI, and the app shows a “no final sign-off yet” note until a second person has checked each recipe. Brand-dependent ingredients are flagged so you check the label. Always do; we filter what we know, and tell you what we don't.

      What will it cost?

      The dialogue, eat-out, the core recipes, cook mode and a few of your own dishes are free. A Socrabites Household subscription will add the full library, unlimited own dishes and imports, a week planner with one combined list, and a shared household. No paywall before your first verdict.

      The waitlist

      Reserve a table for one.

      The first beta is for iPhone, through Apple's TestFlight. Leave your email and we'll send you an invitation when a seat opens.

      Coming soon on theApp Store

      One email with your invitation. That's it.

      Or interrogate the app first →