Why I built this
A note from the maker
Smackerel is a personal food journal built for one person: you.
In the early days of the social era — just before Instagram and during the heyday of Foursquare — I built a startup called dish‑on‑it. The idea was simple: take a picture of your food, rate what you ate, and when enough people did that, you’d get a map of what was good, where, and on which day. You could finally find the dish you wanted at the place that made it best, with real photos from real people. Seattle was well represented, and we discovered many new restaurants that made our favorite dishes even better than our tried‑and‑true spots. We had big ideas for where it could go.
Then Instagram arrived, and, well… those ideas went the way of the dodo. We shut it down and moved on.
I loved that app! People used it for two things:
- a personal journal of what they ate, how it was, and where — with a photo worth remembering and sharing; and
- contributing to a shared pool of knowledge among friends and peers.
I missed that.
Recently, I traveled the world with a backpack and no agenda — made new friends, enjoyed amazing food, boats, buses, trains, hikes, dorms, capsules, nature, history, wine, and, of course, pictures of food. Someone eventually asked me: “Do you have a list of restaurants you like in Vancouver? Specifically Japanese (sushi), Indian, Greek, or Persian?”
It was a reasonable question. We’d cooked for each other. They knew my taste.
I missed that old app — so I built it again.
Smackerel is a re‑imagining of that idea for today’s world: a completely private, no‑accounts, no‑social, no‑ads, no‑noise food journal that gets smarter as it gets to know you. It grows with you. And the best part is: you already have the data. Your photos. Your meals. Your memories.
Upload your food photos, add your rating and tasting notes, and moments later discover your palate — a profile that evolves as you do.
Today, Smackerel is a smart journal. Tomorrow, it may become more. I’m exploring ideas, and I welcome yours. This is a fun project I built for my friends and family, and you’re welcome to use it. If you like it, help me improve it. If you don’t… well, delete it then.
Hello, Smackerel.
Available on iPhone (iOS 26 or later). Yes, it uses on‑device Apple Intelligence with optional escalation to frontier models (Anthropic). Some mackerel were sustainably harmed and enjoyed as sushi in the making of this app.