The personalized suggestions feature relies on Google Location History and Web & App Activity data to find relevant matches. And therefore, it requires you to turn on Web & App Activity data for your account to be able to offer better recommendations. Moreover, the matches (show in percentage) against your food preferences also rely on your past saved, rated, or visited places. Essentially, the match percentage is a way to show how much your food preferences match a restaurant’s style. So in case, you did not interact (save, rate, or mark as visited) with food places (you visited) in the past, you will not get to see a relevant match percentage for your preference. In which case, you need to rate the places you have visited in the past and wait for some time for the app to do its magic. However, if that is not the case, and you have rated/reviewed, saved, or marked places as visited in the past, here’s how you can leverage the feature to find the best restaurants for your food preferences.
How to set food and drink preferences
Open the Google Maps app on your device (Android or iOS).
Tap on the profile icon on the top right and choose Settings from the list.
Scroll down to the Exploring Places section and select Food and drink preferences.
Here, tap on the Add dietary preferences button under Dietary preferences.
On the next screen, select your preferences and tap on the Update preferences button at the bottom.
From the Food and drink preferences page, tap on the Add button under Interested. Here, select the types of food you are interested in and hit the Add preferences button.
Similar to the above step, tap on the Add button under Less interested and select the types of food you are not that interested in. And tap on the Add preferences button.
Once you have set your dietary preferences and marked the types of food you are interested (or uninterested) in, the app will offer you recommendations based on your set preferences. Further, if you rated/reviewed, saved, or marked food places as visited that you visited in the past, you can leverage the match percentage to find out how much the place you are deciding to visit matches your food preferences.
How to view personalized restaurant recommendations
Open the Google Maps app on your device (Android or iOS).
Tap on Restaurants to view a list of all the suggested restaurants.
From here, tap on a place you find interesting and hit the See your match button.
Now, once you hit the See your match button, Google Maps will display the match between your set preferences and the restaurant to offer you personalized suggestions, and in turn, save your time sifting through the entire list. As already mentioned, the match is represented in percentage, with a higher number indicating how likely you are to be interested in that restaurant. However, a thing to keep in mind when using this feature is that, besides your set preferences, the app also relies on your reviews for places you visited in the past. So, in order for it to offer more accurate match results, it is required that you review restaurants (that you visit) more often.
