Are AI-Made Reservations Fair?

Welcome to Open Tab, a weekly roundup of the news, gossip, and stories that have stayed open in my tabs all week. Last time we covered the end of ‘Chicken Shop Date.’Welcome back to Open Tab. Labor Day weekend was excuse enough for me to make salmon tacos with pineapple-chile salsa—always a hit—followed by a fluffy, aromatic olive oil cake. I’ve found myself cooking at home almost exclusively in recent weeks, but, in no particular order, here are the New York Restaurants I’ve been meaning to hit: Dean’s, Hommali, Kirbee’s, Graciela, and El Califa de Leon. Make of that list what you will.This week marks 25 years since the attacks on 9/11—many in the food world are remembering Windows on the World, the restaurant opened on the top floors of the North Tower. CNN also released a documentary on the restaurant, which was at one time the highest-grossing standalone restaurant in the country.Another fascinating read: Ruby Tandoh in the New Yorker on Saudi Arabia’s quest to rebrand as a culinary capital which includes, among other things, the introduction of Michelin stars last year. Michelin has been evaluating more and more cities, often partnering with (read: getting paid by) local tourism boards who recognize that the distinction can attract a real wave of tourists to the area. But when I interviewed him a couple years ago, Gwendal Poullennec, international director of the Michelin Guide, insisted that the guide’s expansion wasn’t about the money—it was about finding more cities with “culinary potential” than ever before.Oh, also they’re doing $60 loaves of rye bread now. Oy.Also in this week’s Open Tab: the people using AI agents to score reservations, what exactly are ultraprocessed foods?, and the eternal question: Is it ever ok to bring your own seasonings to restaurants?AI agents? I have reservationsThis week’s addition to the AI hellscape? Personal AI agents. Meta released Muse, and Instinct continues to gain traction. These are agents that can respond to emails, book plane tickets, secure you a spot in a workout class, arrange and rearrange your calendar, and, yes, make grab that impossible-to-get dinner reservation. Hypothetically.Using AI agents to nab tough reservations may also get you banned from reservation platforms, as one user found out this week. The way these agents work is by spamming the reservation platform hundreds of times per hour for hours on end. The reservation platforms flag that as suspicious activity, and may ban your account.When I reached out to Resy for comment, a spokesperson clarified that the company doesn’t permit “unapproved third-party bots or AI agents to independently access or interact with the Resy platform.” That’s not to say the company is anti-AI—it’s recently announced integrations with ChatGPT and Claude. But rather, it says, Resy wants to maintain a “fair reservation experience for diners.”And that’s really the crux of the issue; it’s not hard to imagine a day in the not-too-distant future when AI agents can work within a platform's terms of service (in fact, that day may have actually been earlier this week) grabbing the toughest tables the second they become available. It’s an undeniable upping of the ante in the already impossible reservations war. What are non-agent-assisted restaurant lovers to do? How can restaurants, many dependent on these platforms to stay booked, respond? Is this the beginning of a golden age for walk-in only spots?What exactly makes a food ultraprocessed?This week, California approved a landmark bill that establishes a process for which foods may label themselves as non-ultraprocessed. This comes after the state was the first in the nation to put forth a solid definition of what exactly an ultraprocessed food is. Although there’s been a lot of talk about ultraprocessed foods (or UPFs)—mostly stemming from the MAHA movement—there’s not a true consensus on how to delineate which foods are ultraprocessed and which aren’t.I mean, sure, maybe you simply know it when you see it: an apple is not ultraprocessed. Gently glowing, fire-engine red flamin’ hot cheetos boxed mac and cheese is ultraprocessed.At the federal level, the US is still in the process of drawing up an official definition, but around the world, several definitions are held as true. Brazilian researchers define UPFs as all foods with industrial ingredients like sweeteners or emulsifiers. Research group Healthy Eating Research says they’re foods “processed to the extent that they are no longer recognizable as their original plant/animal source.”Though there isn’t a firm categorization (yet), we’re already beginning to see colossal food companies respond to the discourse. PepsiCo is reportedly shifting focus to fresh foods instead of processed ones, and some cereal companies have stopped using artificial dyes. All good stuff, but I will say this: You can pry my flamin’ hot cheetos mac and cheese out of my cold, dead, cholesterol-clogged hands.BYOSSome people bring their own birthday cakes to restaurants. Others bring their own bottle of wine to enjoy with dinner. And then there are the people who bring their own seasonings to restaurants. It’s a controversial topic, but for those who don’t leave the house without their pocket Maldon, their Calabrian chili oil, their fancy olive oil it’s really no question at all. Read Maggie Hennessy’s intriguing piece on Bon Appétit for more.