Tastet Takes Flight Thanks to Air France

Tastet is now the engine powering the Air France Best Tables Guide! There are moments when you realize that what you built had a bigger reason for existing than you ever imagined, and for me, that moment is today.

When I launched Tastet in 2014, I wasn’t dreaming of an empire. I wanted to share something honest: good local addresses, real independent tables, the people behind every project. No bought rankings, no ads dressed up as recommendations, just a rigorous and sincere voice, rooted in our Quebec food culture. Twelve years later, that voice will be heard at 35,000 feet, before Air France passengers have even set foot at Pearson or Trudeau. The Élise of 2014, with her laptop and her list of restos, would never have seen this coming!

A Quebec Company Exporting Its Know-How

In Quebec, we talk a lot about building companies “that stay here,” or building companies “that break through internationally.” We often forget that it’s possible to do both at once. As of today, Tastet becomes a strategic supplier to an international air transport giant. Quebec knows how to do this in video games, in AI, in aerospace, and we’re proving we can do it in culinary curation too.

Tastet built a technology infrastructure with them, one that we license to Air France. For eight years, while most food media were content to publish rankings and live off display advertising, we made a different choice. We invested in data. We structured every address against 40+ criteria. We built a proprietary recommendation engine. We built a multi-tenant SaaS platform capable of hosting any partner, in any city, under its own brand.

That groundwork, invisible for years, is exactly what allowed us to meet Air France’s need. This world-renowned gastronomic airline wasn’t looking for a freelance writer to produce copy about Montreal. It was looking for an expert partner with a reputation and a technology capable of deploying, at scale, a reliable and independent editorial experience, city after city, across a fleet serving nearly 900 destinations.

We went from gastronomic guide to content and data infrastructure for one of the largest airlines in the world (!) That shift has been over a decade in the making, one line of code, one address and one data point at a time.

What This News Really Says, in Numbers

730,000 passengers. 100+ addresses per city. 20 editorial lists. Two cities, to start. I could stop there, and honestly, I’m proud of those numbers.

But those numbers only take on their full meaning when you place them against what we built upstream: more than 3 million unique readers, an organic reach of 300 million, more than 2,000 addresses tested and hand-picked, plus more than 56,000 proprietary data points accumulated over twelve years. None of our competitors, here or anywhere else, combines that scale of audience with that depth of structured data. It’s precisely that combination, invisible in a press release but unbeatable in a request for proposals, that tipped the scales.

One of the largest airlines in the world, known for its menus signed by starred chefs and its obsession with detail, studied everything on the market… and chose Tastet. An independent Quebec company that visits every address, that tastes, that evaluates against a real grid and puts forward what each place does best; we couldn’t be prouder!!

What This Changes for the Restaurants We Love

Behind every address in a Tastet guide, there’s a chef who gets up early (or who never really goes to bed), a dining room often put together with a lifetime of savings. These people deserve to be discovered by everyone: our local readers, the Canadians we’ll be reaching in the coming months, and travellers from Paris, curious and ready to be surprised.

That has been the heart of Tastet from the start. We’re a lever for the local creators and the artisans of taste who keep our food scene alive. We estimate that you, our readers, spend more than $500 million a year in the local and independent businesses listed on Tastet. This partnership widens that impact further: new eyes, new tables, word of mouth crossing the Atlantic westward to come discover Montreal and Toronto at their best tables.

Growing Without Losing Ourselves

The platform we built together is white label, designed to measure, co-created with the Air France teams. The soul behind it stays 100% Tastet: our voice, our team, our values, tuned to the Air France persona.

My father-in-law used to tell me: “It takes years to become an overnight success.” He has never been more right. Eight years building an infrastructure nobody could see. Twelve years building editorial credibility that money can’t buy. Credibility isn’t built overnight but, once it’s solid, it opens remarkable doors.

And Now, 900 Destinations

Two cities today: Montreal and Toronto, but this is only the beginning. The Air France network serves nearly 900 destinations around the world and, if our model keeps proving itself the way it did for this launch, we see no reason to stop at two cities. This model, built in Quebec on editorial rigour and solid technology infrastructure, can travel anywhere Air France flies. So yes, Tastet is taking flight. Literally.

And somewhere between Paris and Montreal, on board an Air France flight, a traveller will discover these two cities through words written with love by our team.

Thank you to the whole Tastet team, and an enormous thank you to Air France for trusting us with this project, this is only the beginning!

— Élise

Written by Jean-Philippe Tastet