After 10 years of taking a beating from her restaurant guide, no one would be surprised to see her on the floor. Élise Tastet is, however, standing in the ring with a new product in her hands, a mobile app that could allow her to shine beyond our borders.
“This is really the beginning,” rejoices the 33-year-old entrepreneur, who has already put everything she has since 2014 into Tastet, the guide to gourmet addresses that she founded.
The new kind of concierge is launching its Tastet+ app these days, a product designed thanks to 10 years of struggles and failures.
“I often screw up, it’s my way of learning,” candidly says this Montrealer who, at the age of 20, launched her first box. Now, at 33, she finally feels like an entrepreneur.
Élise Tastet demonstrated this humility throughout the interview she gave to the Journal last week, in one of the city’s fashionable establishments which is included in her guide.
The joy that his new product, his app, gives him, we feel deserved, earned after years of lean times and many, many trials and errors.
The little story
The daughter of the famous culinary critic Jean-Philippe Tastet has had a hard time since she launched her site in 2014. She didn’t make a cent in the first four years.
When the site finally took off in 2019, she started selling ads by the ton, which made her unhappy.
“My site was finally working, but I wasn’t on my X yet,” she says.
She went back to school to learn a little about artificial intelligence. The Quebec researcher of Moroccan origin Yoshua Bengio was notably his teacher.
What followed was a long series of failures, she “invested a lot in AI without really knowing” what she was doing.
His attempts to raise venture capital also failed. It was there that she met her mentor, Quebecer Frédéric Lalonde, whose company Hopper is valued at $5 billion.
Today, it still hasn’t revolutionized anything thanks to AI, but it finally has its application. Tastet+ is a bit like its way of “transmitting” the festive experience of a restaurant, the joy of sharing good food, using modern technology.
Paid by the restaurants, Élise?
But what is Tastet? A media? A blog? A restaurant guide with real reviews like the ones Élise’s father wrote?
“We’re more like a blog with a big community,” concedes the site’s owner.
Because sponsored content can be found on Tastet. “Ads help us keep the company open,” we read everywhere on the site.
Our favorite restaurants in Bromontcontent published on May 13, is a partnership with Tourisme Bromont, for example.
It’s a bit like what the Michelin guide does. When his critics travel outside France, it is because they are solicited by cities or associations which pay for their visit.
For us to talk about a restaurant or a bakery in Tastet, “what you eat has to be good,” says the founder. This is the only entry criterion, except that you also have to be the “best” at something: the best burgers, the best French restaurants, the best wine bars, the best in a neighborhood, etc.
Afterwards, the editors hired by Tastet stick to pre-established criteria: service, decor, value for money and atmosphere.
“We managed to create media on catering with quality content that presents the right addresses,” says the entrepreneur.
24 cities in 24 months
Now that Élise Tastet has her “perfect application”, she will set out to conquer the world. Its goal is to add 24 cities in 24 months to its app.
“If you go to New York and you don’t want to read 14 blogs and 12 charts, we will be there to help you,” summarizes the businesswoman.
For the moment, in addition to Montreal, Toronto and Paris, its guide to good gourmet addresses is available in Halifax, Saint John’s (Newfoundland and Labrador), Ottawa, Vancouver and Victoria. Edmonton and Calgary will be added soon.
Internationally, Tastet will start with the cities “where Quebecers go the most”. New York, therefore, as well as a few other cities in the United States, Mexico, Japan and Mediterranean countries (France, Spain, Portugal, Italy).
For a city to be officially in the guide, Tastet must have listed 200 addresses. It is this process that is set in motion in the company’s offices on St-Laurent Street in Montreal.
“I have given everything to create my site for 10 years. I’m going to give everything over the next 24 months to conquer the international market,” she says aggressively.
Same model, same ad
To protect her back, the entrepreneur will rely on the experience accumulated over the course of her partnerships, here in Canada, with big players like Bell or the Queen Elizabeth Hotel.
She can also count on the help of her mentor, Frédéric Lalonde, as well as that of another businessman who helps her a lot, the president of Shopify, Harley Finkelstein.
“They won’t be perfect guides from the start, but we’ll get there,” she says.
If she puts the same ardor and determination into it that she has put into Tastet for 10 years, who will be there to send her to the ground?
WHO IS ELISE TASTET?
- 33 years old / married to a restaurateur / 3 year old son
- Daughter of Jean-Philippe Tastet, culinary critic for 25 years at Duty
- In business since 2011
- Bachelor of Communications
- Masters in Electronic Commerce
TASTET IN BRIEF
- 6 full-time employees
- Founded in 2014
- 95% of revenues from advertising
- 3 million readers per year
- Cities covered (200 restaurants or more): Montreal, Paris and Toronto
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