A Restaurant Menu App that Could Just Change The Way You Order Food

IMAGINE A tool which will help you navigate the most complex menus and give you a simple picture of what to expect from your dish. This is what the first offering of Idea Chakki, a startup company launched by three NDTV veterans and backed by Ratan Tata, who gave them seed funding, is doing.

We got to investigate their first offering, called Dash, which is a ipad menu system which is like no other in the world. “We wanted to do something that no one else in the world is doing and that is precisely what we have managed to do with Dash,” Gunjan Mehrish told me. He, along with Monica Narula and Noopur Tiwari, who have all put in over two decades at NDTV. The company note claims that Dash, “is the world’s first in-restaurant luxury dining app that makes the menu dynamic”.

The interactive product which loads on to restaurant screens allows guests to make choices according to their dietary preferences and even has short videos explaining everything from how the dish is made to small notes ranging from pronunciation to origin of the dish. The company says the app, “gives a quick, visual preview of dishes on restaurant menus using 10-15 second “Fideos” (food videos).It sorts the menu out in innovative ways and collates valuable diner data”.

The first thing that we found interesting about the app was the fact that it would take a lot of guesswork out of the communication between guest and kitchen. The fact that there are a lot of visual guides means that even those who are not comfortable with language could use it with ease.

The product, Mehrish told us, is offered on a subscription basis, starting from Rs 10,000 and going up to Rs 25,000 with more and more intricate specs the higher you go. The company has a payment plan and shoots all the food on the menu, as cooked by the restaurant, for the app, which means it is totally customised to each client. The turnaround time from signing the dotted line to getting the app is 3 to 4 weeks.

As of now, their clients include Tian at ITC Maurya, Artusi in GK 2, New Delhi and they are planning to get 30 clients across the globe by the end of the year.

For clarifications and further details contact gunjan.mehrish@ideachakki.com.