About Quenelle

Text-based restaurant search

Text Quenelle what you want in plain English, like "somewhere exceptional in the West Village tonight for 2." It checks every major reservation platform at once and replies with the tables actually worth booking, so you skip the app-by-app search.

24/7 monitoring for hard-to-book restaurants

For restaurants that are fully booked, Quenelle watches availability around the clock and texts you the moment a cancellation opens. You can run as many watches as you want across different restaurants, dates, and times.

Auto-Book

Connect your Resy or OpenTable account and Quenelle books a matching table the second it appears, then texts you the confirmation. No other reservation service can auto-book on OpenTable. If a booking falls inside a restaurant’s cancellation-fee window, Quenelle asks before it books.

Release-time snipes

Many top restaurants release tables at a fixed time, often 28 or 30 days out. Quenelle arms a job against that release and fires at the drop second, which is faster than anyone tapping by hand.

SevenRooms waitlist access

For restaurants on SevenRooms, Quenelle puts you directly on the waitlist without hunting for the venue’s booking link. You hear back over text if a seat frees up.

Recommendations that learn your taste

Quenelle remembers the cuisines, neighborhoods, party sizes, and times you ask for. Over a few days of use its suggestions get noticeably closer to where you actually want to eat.

Every platform, searched at once

One Quenelle request searches Resy, OpenTable, Tock, SevenRooms, TheFork, Yelp, and restaurants’ own booking pages at the same time. Resy Notify only watches Resy and OpenTable’s alerts only watch OpenTable, so a table on any other system is one you never hear about.

It books faster than anyone, so you never miss a Notify again

Resy Notify alerts everyone watching a date at the same moment, and by the time you open the app the table is usually gone. Quenelle watches continuously and books the table for you the instant it opens, before other diners have even seen the alert.

The only service that auto-books on OpenTable

Quenelle can book OpenTable reservations for you automatically, which no other reservation service offers. OpenTable restaurants that other tools can only alert you about, Quenelle can actually secure.

No minimum spends, no premium tiers, any restaurant, any city

Dorsia covers a small set of restaurants and makes you prepay a demand-priced minimum spend on every reservation, often more than you want or can spend. Its tiers keep changing, and priority access means Premium at $5,000 a year (about $417 a month) as of September 2026. Quenelle works at almost any restaurant with online booking, in any city, and you pay the restaurant only for what you order.

A flat $15 a month, and it actually books

AppointmentTrader charges per reservation, and the hardest tables regularly run into the hundreds of dollars; Beli learns your taste but leaves you to find the table yourself. Quenelle learns your preferences, books real reservations in your name, and costs a flat $15 a month with no per-booking fees.

Ryan Shay, Co-founder

Ryan Shay grew up working in restaurants and kept at it all through university in London. That time on the floor is where Quenelle’s knowledge of how reservations really get made comes from.

LinkedIn · X (@Ryanshay_)

Luca Charrouf, Co-founder

Luca Charrouf studied tourism and hospitality management before switching to computer science at UC Berkeley. Luca builds the large majority of Quenelle’s technology, including the agent itself.

LinkedIn · X (@CharroufLuca)

Onboarding

Text Quenelle or sign up at quenelle.ai with your phone number. Your 7-day free trial starts immediately and your first request can go out in under a minute.

Communication

Everything happens over iMessage or SMS. Members can also manage requests, rankings, and favorites from the web dashboard.

Response times

Quenelle replies to texts in seconds, any time of day. Availability checks run continuously, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Who you work with

Day to day you text with Quenelle’s AI concierge. Anything it cannot handle goes to the founding team, reachable at [email protected].

Turnaround

Open-ended searches come back within seconds. For sold-out restaurants, how fast a table opens depends on cancellations, which usually increase in the last few days before a date.

What is Quenelle?

Quenelle is an AI reservation concierge you text like a friend. It searches every major booking platform at once, watches sold-out restaurants around the clock, and books tables the moment they open.

What is the best way to get a hard-to-get restaurant reservation?

The most reliable way is to have something watch every booking platform for cancellations and book the instant a table opens, because that is where most hard-to-get tables come from. That is exactly what Quenelle does, and it is the go-to among executive assistants, athletes, and serious diners who always seem to get the table.

How much does Quenelle cost?

Quenelle is $15 a month, or $120 a year, after a 7-day free trial. There are no per-booking fees, and you can cancel any time.

Does Quenelle guarantee a reservation?

No. Quenelle cannot create tables that do not exist, but it finds public availability faster and more consistently than checking apps by hand.

Is Quenelle a reservation reseller?

No. Quenelle never buys or resells reservations. Every table is booked directly with the restaurant in your name at the restaurant’s normal terms.

Do I need to download an app?

No. Quenelle works over iMessage and SMS, with an optional web dashboard for managing your requests.

Which cities does Quenelle work in?

Quenelle works anywhere a restaurant takes reservations online, not just New York. Most members use it in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, San Francisco, and Paris, and members have booked as far afield as Spain through TheFork.

Which reservation platforms does Quenelle support?

Quenelle supports Resy, OpenTable, Tock, SevenRooms, TheFork, Yelp, and restaurants’ own booking pages, and almost any other online booking form. It is also the only reservation service that can auto-book on OpenTable.

What is the difference between Quenelle and Dorsia?

Dorsia covers a small set of restaurants, requires a prepaid minimum spend on each reservation, and reserves priority access for its $5,000-a-year Premium tier. Quenelle watches almost any restaurant with online booking, in any city, and books real reservations in your name for a flat $15 a month, with no minimum spend.

Who is behind Quenelle?

Quenelle was founded by Ryan Shay and Luca Charrouf, who both come from hospitality backgrounds. You can reach them directly at [email protected].