Five of the best: food apps

Sesame

This is an elegant kitchen tool for the cook who browses online for recipes: Sesame opens the webpage, saves the method and ingredients, then splices the information into a simply presented format. It’s like a recipe binder in a neat digital folder. Ingredients can also be remembered as shopping lists and recipes can be tagged by meal type or occasion. Not everything can be “grabbed” by the iPhone version but it does have the virtue of displaying data when offline.

£2.99; sesame-app.com; Appstore

Table8

With the tagline, “We know a guy …”, this restaurant reservation app is currently in beta phase in San Francisco but it’s one to watch. Co-founded by Pete Goettner of Silicon venture capital firm Worldview Technology Partners, and Santosh Jayaram, formerly vice-president of business operations at Twitter, Table8 offers a cache of reservations at hard-to-book tables by charging a premium to the user, of which the venue takes a cut. So if you’re passing through San Francisco it would increase your chances of getting in last minute at, say, Boulevard or Spruce. The app may be rolled out to New York and London in due course.

Free to download; table8.us; Appstore

Up Coffee

From Jawbone, the San Francisco creators of the “Up” wristband that measures exercise and sleep, this app provides a thorough caffeine audit. It works best in conjunction with the Up band to evaluate how your body is affected by coffee but it can also be used independently. You can input teas, coffees and cola drinks, and record the time of consumption to enable a detailed analysis.

Free; jawbone.com; Appstore

Gluugle

The creation of “Gluten Free Foodie” blogger and coeliac Carol Roberts, Gluugle is a useful compass to find restaurants and cafés with gluten-free options. Suitable venues are listed according to your location, with accompanying reviews. The database ranges from Lancaster to London but will continue to expand.

Free; gluugle.com; Appstore

Where Chefs Eat

It’s not cheap but the information in Where Chefs Eat is valuable: the haunts and hotspots of the world’s best chefs, from Melbourne to São Paulo. So you have David Chang recommending his favourite sushi bar in Tokyo, or Jacob Kenedy giving his tapas tip for Barcelona. The updated second edition is due later this year, with more chef-contributors, more countries and cuisines, and new categories such as “ultimate breakfast” places. There is a book of the same name but its size is far less travel-friendly.

£10.49; phaidon.com; Appstore

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