The best restaurant discount websites & apps

The Fork, First Table, NeoTaste & more reviewed.

Going to a restaurant is a real treat, but it doesn’t need to – and shouldn’t – break the bank. 

We’ve looked into a number of websites and apps that promise to slash your bill every time you eat out – but how do they work and are they any good?

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The Fork

The Fork is a website and app that allows you to find and book restaurants offering discounted dining. 

It’s free to use and there are nearly 60,000 restaurants listed on the site in 13 countries – so it’s one of the biggest and most established players. 

It’s really easy to use – you just scroll through restaurants in your local area and you’ll see what the discount is as well, often up to 50% off, as well as the restaurant’s rating and the average price of a meal. 

The Fork also has its own loyalty scheme that rewards frequent users with points, called Yums. Every time you make a booking through the website or app you get 100 ‘Yums’ and you’ll get 300 Yums when you book restaurants tagged with ‘Yums x3’. 

Once you earn 1,000 Yums you get £20 off your next booking and 2,000 Yums gets you a £50 discount. You can find out more about The Fork’s Yums here. 

Right now, you can earn 1,000 Yums for your first booking with my referral code 848A9F56. Just enter it at the end of the booking process and you’ll get the points three days after your meal.

Any exclusions?

The discounts you see only apply to the food and exclude drinks, set menus and service charge. 

You’ll also find that the deals are often limited to certain days and times, although some restaurants offer discounts seven days a week.

Verdict

We love a website or app that offers restaurant offers for free! There’s no reason not to use The Fork – it’s a no-brainer – and I’d suggest having a quick scroll before you book a restaurant to see if you can grab yourselves a deal.

One thing to note is that some areas of the country will be more limited in terms of the deals on offer, compared to others. For example, at the time of writing there are only four restaurant offers in Brighton & Hove, and five in Bristol.

However, at the same time there are 322 restaurants offering discounts in London – so you know what to do if you’re visiting the capital. 

First Table

First Table offers 50% off breakfast, lunch and dinner when you book an early table at participating restaurants. 

It’s free to sign up but you’ll pay either £4, £6 or £8 for each booking and this covers two, three or four people. For most of the restaurants I saw, there was a £6 booking fee.

There are currently over 2,600 restaurants on First Table across:

• London
• Bath
• Belfast
• Birmingham
• Brighton
• Bristol
• Cardiff
• Edinburgh
• Glasgow
• Leeds
• Liverpool
• Manchester

So how early do you have to eat to get a ‘first table’? Well, for dinner you’re looking at 4.30pm, 5pm or 5.30pm, however I’ve seen some tables available at 6pm, 7pm and even 8pm at certain restaurants. 

These tables are usually available during the week although some places do offer bookings at weekends too.

Some restaurants also offer the same deal for late night tables too, so you could book from 8pm or 9pm.

There are far fewer breakfast options but the ones I found could be booked for 9.30am or 10am. Lunch tables start at 12pm.

Any exclusions?

Yes, quite a few. The 50% discount only applies to food and most places specify that each diner needs to order a drink. 

But there are also ‘special conditions’ I spotted on the pages of specific restaurants, such as:

• A requirement for each person to have a minimum of two courses – Wardroom at The Old Ship hotel, Brighton, and Teal Monkey, Belfast
• Customers must buy a glass of wine each (a bottle of wine is sufficient) – Sofra 11 South Molton, London
• Menu exclusions. For example, oysters, Beef Wellington, rib of beef and any specials aren’t included in the offer at Sussex, London and set menus aren’t included at Lahpet Covent Garden
• Supplements. For example, Joia Restaurant in Glasgow charges a £7 supplement on meat and fish mains (plus a minimum of one drink and two mains per person)
• The 50% only applies to the A La Carte Menu at Redfarm, London

These special conditions are displayed before you book and you’ll be reminded again before you pay. 

Verdict: 

I don’t love the fact you have to pay to access these discounts and while you can still make savings even with the booking fee, if you’re eating out a lot the amount of money you’re fronting can soon stack up. 

The early booking slots won’t work for everyone, but there seems to be plenty of restaurants offering tables at normal dinner times and there’s a small selection of places with the ‘last table’ deal. And I don’t love the ‘special conditions’ which mean that in some cases, you’ll be ordering more than you usually would. 

NeoTaste

NeoTaste offers restaurant deals in 51 cities across the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and Austria. 

In the UK, it’s currently only available in Birmingham, Brighton, London, Liverpool and Manchester and there are currently almost 4,000 offers.

It’s a paid subscription but at the moment, you can try it for free for a month on iPhone or Android.

After that, there are three options. You can go for a monthly subscription for £6.99 a month, annual for £2.99 a month or sign up for two years, also for £2.99 a month. You can cancel anytime and all deals in all cities are included.

The deals are usually eat-in (the point of the app is to ‘discover new restaurants’) and the most common offers I’ve seen are two-for-one mains (also BOGOF drinks at cafes and pubs) or a discount on a minimum spend.

There are a limited number of deals up for grabs – for example, Carlito Burrito is currently offering 20 £3 burritos every day and Papa Johns in Epsom, is offering 20 chances to get 2-4-1 pizza.

You book the deal on the app (although you’ll have to book a table separately) and show it to the staff when you arrive at the restaurant and when you come to pay. Once you’ve redeemed the deal, you can’t use it again for a period of time – usually 90 days for a main meal offer and 30 days for a side dish or drink deal. 

How much can you save?

NeoTaste says the £6.99 month subscription is worth it if you use it once a month, and the other two for £2.99 a month are worthwhile if you use it three to four times a year.

While you’ll be wasting money if you don’t use it, if you do use it, you could technically be making savings from the first visit as plenty of main courses on the apps cost more than £6.99.

Any exclusions?

There doesn’t seem to be any exclusions apart from the rule that you can’t use it at the same time as other promotions, which is to be expected.

Verdict: 

I really like the NeoTaste app – it’s straight-forward to use and there are some decent features like a map that shows you where all the deals are, the restaurants that are open and the top 10 offers in your area. These aren’t necessarily unique features but the app’s been designed well.

I also think the deals are decent if you’re someone who eats out a lot and there’s a good spread of restaurants in the cities NeoTaste operates in – although these are limited at the moment. However, it’s a bit annoying that you can’t book a table at the same time as you’re booking the deal – and I wonder if that could cause issues if the restaurant doesn’t have space.

However, it is a subscription service, so if you don’t use it, you’ll be wasting your money. But as I said, there’s a free trial available at the moment so there’s no harm in giving it a try to see how well it works for you. Just remember to cancel before the trial period ends to avoid being charged.