NOTE: Restu has now ceased trading. If it restarts then I will update this post.
Restu divides itself into two parts. It’s primarily a restaurant guide that on a basic level offers a free reservation service. At a higher level, based on your reservations history and types of meal that you were interested in it will suggest other restaurants for you to try. Once you’ve found a place then booking is very simple i.e. enter date/time, No. of People and away you go. Since 2017 all restaurants are non-smoking.
I’ve found a few advantages for using the service. For a short-stay tourist the main advantages are a great choice, the likelihood of a better table, the option of requesting a specific table and being able to quickly find out if a restaurant is full at the time that you want without needing to contact the restaurant itself.
For a long-stay visitor then as well as the above you can sign-up for a Restu account and as you use the free service you’ll get credits which can then eventually be exchanged for a Restu voucher (CZK300 off a meal for two). The clever part is that as you identify your favourite restaurants and use them regularly then Restu will suggest similar places to try based on your previous choices. The restaurants will identify you as a regular customer, give you booking/seat priority and come up with it’s own suggestions for meals and surprises based on your previous preferences.
The Restu App (both Android and Apple) is pretty straightforward so long as it recognises that you want to use English. If you are walking down the street and find a place that you like then you’ll have to use the App to find if its a Restu client (or it may have a sticker in the window). From 10am to 9pm Restu operates a 10 minute confirmation time i.e. from the time you request a reservation to the the time it’s confirmed.
Restu is also a gourmet restaurant guide with descriptions about the locations in Czech and English but as by far the people who use the restaurants will be Czech then it means that most of the reviews are in Czech so go by the star rating and date to get an idea if recent reviews are still good.