Nothing here was spun by a bot. The same eleven of us who read flagged notes, pack meetup stickers, and eat at the kitchens we map wrote these replies at our desks.
Fellow diners often chime in before we even see the thread.
community.platefolk.comListing claims, dashboard snags, invoices — a separate line for you.
[email protected]A short read now beats an hour of guessing later. If you only open one block on this page, open this one.
Platefolk is a neighbourhood dining map built from field notes — short, human write-ups from people who live nearby and actually sat down. We skip the star-score arms race. Instead we gather moments, photos, and local texture across about 4,200 places and 92K reviews, and our editors braid the strongest pieces into weekly guides across 180 cities.
In plain terms: we hope you find a kitchen you revisit, not a pin you screenshot once and never open again.
For diners, yes — entirely. Browse every city, read the notes on our 4,200 places, keep as many lists as you like, and post your own write-ups with no subscription wall.
Owners who want richer tools (menus, photo sets, event slots) can pay on their side. That income keeps the diner experience free of ads and funds the writers we hire. Details live in the owner section below.
You can wander the whole site without signing in. No “create an account to continue” gate. You only need a login when you want to:
Use “Share a place” in the header, or tap “Sign in” on any note card. Sign-in options: email with a password, Apple, or Google. We deliberately skip Facebook.
Three things you can point at:
We map 180 cities today, with local note-keepers active in most of them and thinner “soft launch” coverage in a handful more. Browse the full roster on our Cities page.
Missing yours? Request it from that page. When about 25 people ask for the same spot, we begin recruiting moderators within the month.
Most diner questions land in one of the answers below once you have an account.
Search for the kitchen (name, block, or dish works). On its page, hit the terracotta “Add a note” button. A Platefolk note has three pieces:
Whenever you like. Profile → “My notes” → pencil to revise, trash to remove. Edits keep the original publish date and show a quiet “edited” mark. Deleted notes sit in a short holding period (14 days) in case you undo, then they’re gone for good.
Specific, personal, and brief. Moderators tend to notice three signals:
Most notes that land well sit around 50–80 words. Longer is okay when the night was bigger.
You get unlimited Lists — named buckets of kitchens (“Rainy lunches”, “Anniversary shortlist”, “Osaka homework”). Keep them private or share a short public link.
Public lists appear on your profile and others can follow them. Up to five friends can co-edit a list, which people love for group trips.
Not fully invisible. You can publish under a display handle without showing your legal first name to other diners. Moderators still see the verified first name + city so they can follow up if something is flagged.
Total anonymity is how ghost kitchens and fake praise sneak in, so we have never allowed it. That line has been firm since the first city.
A thin slice of notes (roughly 4%) trip an “unusual pattern” check — for example a brand-new account raving about a tiny spot. Only then do we ask for a one-time receipt photo. Prices and personal bits are blurred before a moderator looks.
Skip the verify step and the note stays pending: visible on your profile, not counted in the kitchen’s public stack.
Type any of these:
Results default to the city you last browsed; flip cities with the small globe. We are not fuzzy on typos yet — shorten the query if the box comes up empty.
Only when you open it. On your profile, “Might be your table” peeks at places you saved or praised and offers six similar spots in the city you’re viewing. We do not shove recommendations into the homepage feed or push notifications.
To shut it off: Settings → Privacy → uncheck “Use my notes for suggestions”. Your notes stay public; they simply stop feeding that drawer.
A tighter version of For Restaurants — without the full pricing layout.
Open your kitchen on Platefolk, then choose “Claim this listing” in the sidebar. Prove it’s yours one of three ways:
Weekday reviews of claims usually finish inside 48 hours.
Plenty for a small kitchen. The free plate gives you:
Plenty of independents stay on free forever. That is fine with us.
Not on taste alone — that is the bargain. You may flag a note for three reasons: a clear factual miss (wrong dish, wrong night), abuse aimed at staff, or a competitor writing the piece. A moderator reads the flag within 48 hours and either takes the note down or leaves it with a short explanation.
Disliking the tone is not grounds for removal. You can still post a calm, short public reply — we encourage that over arguing every sentence.
Table Plus ($29/month per location) adds a full photo menu, event scheduling, story pitches to editors, and a monthly call with a city moderator. Table Group ($79/month for up to six sites) adds multi-location stats, bulk menu edits, and API hooks for POS tools.
Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and SEPA debit for European owners. Through 2026 we are also piloting local bank transfer in Thailand, Indonesia, and Brazil.
Billing is monthly. VAT and local tax follow the address on your business registration.
Yes. Dashboard → Billing → Pause or Cancel. Pause stops charges and drops you to the free plate. Cancel runs through the current month (no mid-cycle refund) and flips to free when the period ends.
No exit fee, no multi-year lock. Handshake sales only.
Three habits we share with every newly claimed kitchen:
Kitchens that reply inside 48 hours keep about 31% more list-saves than kitchens that stay silent.
We treat privacy as table manners — partly principle, partly because our moderators would walk if we got sloppy.
Profile → Settings → Display name. Two changes per 90 days. The old handle frees up after 30 days so nobody can snatch it the morning after you switch.
Your verified first name + city only changes if you email [email protected] — that keeps people from swapping identities to dodge flags.
On sign-in, tap “Forgot it.” We send a one-time link that expires in 30 minutes. Nothing in five minutes? Check spam, then write [email protected] with the date and the last four characters of the address on file.
We never put passwords in email. Not once.
Yes. Settings → Privacy → “Download my notebook.” The ZIP includes every note (JSON + Markdown), original-resolution photos, lists as CSV, and your follow graph. Most packs arrive under ten minutes; we promise within 72 hours.
Settings → Privacy → Delete account. Confirm twice; a short optional reason helps us learn. After that:
Prefer notes wiped instead of anonymized? Say so in the reason box and we will remove them.
No clever carve-outs. We run no ads. We do not sell emails, notes, or browsing trails. The only outsiders who ever touch a slice of data are:
The full picture is in our Privacy Policy, written so you can finish it with a coffee.
On a profile, open the three-dot menu → Mute (you stop seeing them; they still see you) or Block (neither side sees the other). Blocks are quiet — no notification to them.
If someone is genuinely harmful, flag one of their notes as well. That lands on a moderator’s desk within the hour.
Moderation is where trust usually cracks. Here is exactly how ours runs.
Neighbours, not a distant call centre. We work with hundreds of volunteer note-keepers worldwide and about 48 city moderators who live full-time in the places they cover. Volunteers get a small monthly stipend ($60 plus meal credits) and are nominated by people already on the roster.
Each moderator’s public profile shows their handle, city, and how many flags they have handled. No anonymous shadow team.
Six grounds — and only these six:
Sharp, honest criticism stays. That is the point of the map.
Yes. A hidden note triggers an email with the reason and an appeal link. A different moderator reviews the appeal (editors join on a second round). Most land within 48 hours.
About 22% of appeals reverse the first call. We publish that rate on our transparency page each quarter.
Three layers stacked:
No auto-delete by algorithm alone. A person always decides.
Tap the flag on the note and pick a reason from the six above. A one-line “why” speeds the handoff. The author never sees who flagged them; flags stay private.
For anyone eyeing Platefolk Stories.
Mail [email protected] with subject “[City] — [Working title]”. In the body, include:
Expect a reply within 10 business days. We take roughly one in six pitches; editors answer every submission.
$300 for shorts (600–900 words), $500 for mid-length (1,200–1,800), $800 for reported features (2,500+). Payment lands on acceptance — not on publish day — within 14 days via Wise or Stripe Connect.
No resume required. Some of our strongest pieces came from a dentist in Lisbon, a lawyer in Bangkok, a bus driver in Osaka. We want voice and local knowledge, not a critic’s badge.
If one paragraph makes us want to book a seat, we want to talk.
No finished draft from a model. Transcription, spell-check, and brainstorming tools are fine — we are not hunting keystrokes — but the published voice must be yours, and you sign a short declaration saying so. We still run a detector as the last check before a piece goes live.
Never. That sits with our other two un-crossable lines: no ads, and no paid hiding of critical notes. A bought story is an ad; we do not run those. Editorial is funded by owner plans and a small seed round, not by coverage cheques.
If your snag is not listed, email [email protected] with a screenshot — we move quickly.
Almost always a sticky cookie. Work through these in order:
Still stuck? Write us with browser, OS, and roughly when it started.
Known quirk with some iPhone HEIC files and older Android cameras. On upload, tap “Rotate” once, then save. Automatic EXIF-aware handling is rolling out through April 2026.
Ad blockers often block our tile provider (OpenMapTiles). Allowlist platefolk.com, or switch browsers. A self-hosted tile fallback is on the 2026 list.
Check two places:
Work Gmail or Outlook sometimes quarantines the weekly digest — ask IT to whitelist our sending domain.
Not in the stores yet — the site installs as a Progressive Web App. iOS: Safari → Share → “Add to Home Screen”. Android: Chrome → menu → “Install app”.
A native app is on the 2026 roadmap only if we can ship it without extra tracking. Timing is still open.
Last incident: 2026-02-17 (18-minute search outage). Full timeline on our status page (status.platefolk.com).
Monthly dinners, moderator badges, and the people who steer each city.
Active cities host a monthly Long Table — a low-key dinner that rotates kitchens, usually 12–20 people, a mix of moderators and whoever RSVPs in time. Sign-ups open on the 1st from your city page.
Bring cash for your share. Nothing is comped. This is a neighbourhood table, not a free meal list.
There is no application form. An existing moderator in your city nominates you after meeting you at a Long Table or noticing careful notes over time. Cold applications get ignored on purpose — that path is how bad actors try to walk in.
Want in? Write strong notes, show up to dinner, stay kind, give it a few months.
One lead per city runs the monthly dinner, edits the city page, and weighs major complaints. They get an extra $90/month and a dedicated inbox. Find yours at the foot of the Cities page — we have about 48 of them across the map.
No — by design. Both drifted toward silence or pile-ons when we tried them. We keep a slower forum instead (our community forum at community.platefolk.com) with threaded posts; the best threads sometimes become Stories.
Want real-time chat? The monthly dinner is the better room.
House vocabulary, written down once so we all mean the same thing.
Every message is read. The crew is small (11 people), so replies may take a beat — but a human writes back.
Accounts, privacy requests, or just saying hello. Typical weekday reply around four hours.
[email protected]Claims, billing, dashboard bugs, plan questions. Separate inbox so it moves faster.
[email protected]Regulars often answer within an hour. Ideal for “where should I eat in Lisbon” threads.
community.platefolk.comSend a two-paragraph idea. Editors reply to every pitch, usually within 10 working days.
[email protected]If nothing above helped, email us and tell us what you searched for. Dead-end searches feed next week’s updates. That is how this desk grew — diners naming what was missing.