Best Restaurant Reservation Apps for NYC (2026): Dorsia vs Quenelle vs Resy Notify and More

Search for a way into New York's hardest restaurants and you'll find a dozen apps promising to get you in. They don't all do the same thing. Some only alert you. Some book for you. One charges a minimum spend before you sit down. Until recently, one let strangers sell you their reservations.

I've used most of them while booking tables for clients. Quenelle is our product, so weigh what I say about it accordingly. I've tried to describe every app here the way its own makers would recognize, using their published pricing and recent reporting, as of November 2026. Prices and features change often, so check before you sign up.

The Four Kinds of Reservation App

Before comparing names, it helps to know what kind of tool you're looking at:

NYC Reservation Apps Compared

Free Platform Alerts: Resy Notify, Amex Priority Notify, OpenTable

Resy Notify is the first thing everyone should turn on. Pick a restaurant, date, and time window, and Resy alerts you when a matching table opens. It costs nothing.

The limitation is that Notify goes to everyone on the list at once, and the first person to finish booking wins. At a restaurant where hundreds of people are watching the same Saturday, the table is usually gone before most people open the alert.

Amex Priority Notify is part of American Express's Global Dining Access by Resy. Eligible cardholders, including Platinum Card members, get the alert before other Resy users, along with other dining perks. It's a real edge if you already carry the card. It's an expensive one to get just for this: the Platinum Card's annual fee is $895.

OpenTable's alerts work the same way for OpenTable restaurants. That matters in New York, where some in-demand rooms, like Graciela and Crane Club, aren't on Resy at all.

Best for: everyone, as a baseline. Weakness: each watches only its own platform, and everyone gets the alert at once.

Alert Trackers: Snag, TableWatch, Ez Rez, Reservation Drops

A wave of independent apps now track NYC reservations for you:

• Snag (snagres.com) publishes live guides to New York's hardest tables and offers free alerts for both scheduled releases and cancellations. It says it never books, holds, or resells tables.
• TableWatch monitors fully booked restaurants on Resy and OpenTable and sends SMS or email alerts when a table opens. Its App Store listing is free, with in-app purchases.
• Ez Rez is a free iPhone app that tracks release times at dozens of hard-to-book NYC restaurants and alerts you at the moment to book.
• Reservation Drops shows drop windows and release times, with push alerts and direct links to the booking platforms.
• Snatch'd is a free iPhone app that tracks drops at popular NYC restaurants and says it notifies you when a table is secured.

These are genuinely useful, especially for knowing exactly when a restaurant releases tables. But an alert is still a race. You get the notification at the same moment as everyone else using the same app, and you still have to open the booking platform, pick a time, and confirm.

Best for: people who want to know release times and are happy to book by hand. Weakness: you still have to be faster than everyone else with the same alert.

Booking Services: Quenelle and Spot

Quenelle

Quenelle is a reservation concierge you text. You tell it the restaurant, dates, times, and party size. It watches Resy, OpenTable, Tock, and SevenRooms around the clock and texts you the moment a real table appears. If you connect your Resy or OpenTable account, it can book a matching table in your name the second it opens, then text you the confirmation. If a table would put you inside a restaurant's cancellation-fee window, it asks first.

There's no minimum spend and no per-booking fee. You pay the restaurant only for what you order. Quenelle costs $15 a month or $120 a year after a 7-day free trial, and it works in any city where restaurants book online.

We also publish detailed guides to the city's hardest tables, starting with The Truly Impossible Reservations of NYC.

Best for: people who want specific tables and don't want to refresh apps. Weakness: it can't create tables that never come back. At a room like 4 Charles Prime Rib, where tables almost never reappear, no app is a substitute for the line at the door.

Spot

Spot is an invite-only New York app that books hard-to-get tables for its members. According to press coverage, it costs about $15 a month for a Lite plan or $50 a month for a capped Pro plan. It uses its own system to watch availability rather than logging in as you. Reviewers have reported booking tables at places like Via Carota through it.

Best for: New Yorkers who can get an invite. Weakness: access is by invitation, it's New York only, its pricing and coverage aren't published in detail, and despite its no-ban pitch, at least one App Store reviewer says Resy permanently banned their account after using it (more below).

Can a Reservation App Get Your Resy Account Banned?

Yes, and it has happened this year. This is the question I'd ask before handing any app your login.

Resy's position is blunt: it "does not currently permit unapproved third-party bots or agents to independently access or interact with the Resy platform." OpenTable and SevenRooms limit automated access in their terms too. Here's what enforcement has looked like:

• An Instinct user was banned. A New York VC was locked out of Resy in September 2026 after his Instinct AI assistant chased a table at 4 Charles Prime Rib by pinging Resy hundreds of times an hour, according to CNN and Restaurant Business. Resy reinstated the account, but warned that a repeat could lead American Express to close both his Resy account and his Amex card.
• A second New Yorker was banned for sending an AI agent after a table, per Restaurant Business, and later reinstated.
• A developer who gave a Hermes AI agent his Resy login reported the account was deactivated within about 48 hours.
• A Spot user says they were banned too. Spot markets itself as safe from Resy bans, but the most helpful review on its App Store page, a one-star review posted on October 13 and titled "Permanently banned by Resy for using this," says Resy permanently banned the reviewer's account after they used Spot to try for 4 Charles Prime Rib. It's a single user's account that we can't independently verify, but it's the top review on Spot's own listing.

In most documented cases, the trouble came from software hammering Resy while logged in as the diner, and a tool's own claims about safety aren't proof. That's the thing to check. Ask any app three questions:

Here's how the apps in this guide describe themselves:

• Resy Notify, Amex Priority Notify, and OpenTable alerts are the platforms' own features, so there's no risk.
• Alert-only trackers like Snag, TableWatch, Ez Rez, and Reservation Drops tell you about a table and leave the booking to you. Snag says it never books, holds, or resells tables.
• Apps that say they secure or book tables for you are where to ask the questions above. Snatch'd says it secures cancelled tables but doesn't publish how. Spot says it watches without logging in as its members, a claim Caper Media has described as unverified and one its top App Store review disputes. Instinct and other general-purpose AI assistants are the tools behind the bans reported in the press.
• Quenelle checks for tables from its own systems, not by logging in as you. It uses your connected Resy or OpenTable account only to book a table you've asked for, once, in your name. If you'd rather it never touch your account, it can simply text you and leave the booking to you.

No one outside Resy knows exactly what its detection looks for, and no app can promise you'll never be flagged. But the risk is real, and it's easy to ask about before you hand over your login.

Pay-to-Dine: Dorsia

Dorsia, named after the restaurant Patrick Bateman couldn't get into, is a members-only club. You apply in the app, and if accepted you can book tables at Dorsia's partner restaurants by prepaying a minimum spend. The minimum is set by demand, like airline pricing, and the full amount goes toward your bill.

Dorsia's FAQ lists three tiers: Access at $200 a year, Premium at $5,200 a year (with $4,000 in dining credit), and Premium Plus at $25,200 a year (with $20,000 in credit). Prices have changed several times, so check the app. Cancellation terms are strict; one guide reports that cancelling well ahead returns your prepayment as Dorsia credit rather than a refund.

Dorsia does what it says: if a partner restaurant has a Dorsia table, you can have it. Its partner list is a small fraction of the city, and the minimums can be well above what you'd normally spend.

Best for: frequent diners at Dorsia's partner restaurants who'd spend the minimum anyway. Weakness: cost, a limited restaurant list, and money up front for every booking.

Looking for a Dorsia alternative?

If what you want is a specific table without prepaying a minimum, the alternatives are, from cheapest:

• free alerts (Resy Notify, OpenTable)
• Amex Priority Notify if you already have an eligible card
• a free alert app like Snag or TableWatch
• a booking service like Quenelle or Spot

The trade-off is certainty. At Dorsia's partner restaurants, money buys a sure thing. Everywhere else, you're catching tables as they open.

Resale Marketplaces: AppointmentTrader

AppointmentTrader let people sell reservations they'd made to other diners, sometimes for hundreds of dollars. In New York, that model ran into the Restaurant Reservation Anti-Piracy Act, signed by Governor Hochul in December 2024. The law took effect on February 17, 2025, and bars third parties from listing or selling reservations without the restaurant's agreement. Reporting in 2025 said AppointmentTrader stopped listing New York restaurants after the law took effect.

Even where resale is allowed, it's risky: restaurants routinely cancel reservations made under someone else's name. I wouldn't spend money this way in New York.

Which Reservation App Should You Use?

• If you dine out casually: turn on Resy Notify and OpenTable alerts. That's enough.
• If you have an eligible Amex card: add your card to Resy so Priority Notify kicks in.
• If you mainly want release times: use a free tracker like Snag, Ez Rez, or Reservation Drops alongside our restaurant-by-restaurant guides.
• If you want specific hard tables without refreshing apps: use a booking service. That's what we built Quenelle for.
• If you're a regular at Dorsia's partner restaurants and the minimums fit your spending: Dorsia does exactly what it promises.

Whatever you choose, keep a confirmed backup. No app makes a table appear that nobody gives up.

What I'd Use to Get a Hard NYC Table This Week

I'd turn on Resy Notify for every date I could make, because it's free. I'd set a Quenelle watch for the same dates, connected to my Resy and OpenTable accounts so it can book the moment a table opens, since most cancellations appear in the daytime when I'm not looking. For a restaurant that releases on a fixed schedule, I'd still set an alarm for the release itself; our restaurant guides list them where they're known. And I'd only pay a minimum spend if the restaurant were a Dorsia partner and the minimum looked like a normal night out anyway.