Earlier this month, we spotted crowdsourced menu pictures in Google Maps. Google today is officially rolling out images of “Popular dishes” in restaurant listings on Android and soon iOS.
With Popular dishes, Google Maps is working to better curate restaurant listings that are already packed with photos, reviews, and ratings. This feature tries to answer “What’s good?” and surface the “most crowd-pleasing meals.”
Whether you’re craving a tea cocktail in Brooklyn or sampling Pacific Rim cuisine in London, Google Maps now highlights a restaurant’s most popular dishes, so you can place your order with confidence.
A new carousel is prominently positioned after basic details like address, phone number, and hours in the main Overview tab. You can browse through cards that include a photo, name, and number of reviews/photos. The top right corner features an “Add dish” button, while tapping “See more” slides users over to the Menu tab.
“Popular” is now the first section with a grid view of selected dishes. Clicking on an item lets you scroll through relevant reviews and browse more photos.
Behind-the-scenes, a machine learning algorithm matches dish names provided by Maps users to relevant photos and reviews. Google will also translate dish reviews when you’re traveling abroad. The company is also encouraging users to contribute their “Popular dishes” by uploading a picture and assigning a name.
At the end of the day, popular dishes are made possible by the contributions from people around the world who want to help others using Google Maps. So if you want to pay it forward to the next diner, simply take a photo of your meal (before you’ve scarfed it down!) and we’ll ask you to add a dish name so others can know what’s good on the menu.
Popular dishes in Google Maps is rolling out on Android today and will be available worldwide. It is coming to iOS in the “coming months.”
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