How to get your restaurant recommended by ChatGPT

How ChatGPT chooses restaurants

When a guest asks ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude where to eat, the assistant usually searches the web before it answers. It reads restaurant websites, guides such as the Michelin Guide, Repsol and Guidavera, listings on Google, TheFork and Tripadvisor, reviews and the press, then names a handful of places and often cites the pages it used.

Two things decide whether one of those places is yours. The first is whether the sources it reads clearly say you’re a good answer to that exact question. The second is whether they agree with each other. A restaurant that every source describes the same way is an easy recommendation; one that only its own website describes is not.

Guests also ask far more specific questions than they type into Google: not “restaurants in Madrid”, but “a quiet restaurant for a business lunch near the Retiro with a private room”. Each of those questions is won or lost on its own.

1. Find the questions guests ask about places like yours

Start with the questions, not the keywords. Think about how a guest would describe the evening they want:

• The occasion: an anniversary, a birthday, a business dinner, a first visit to the city.
• The food: a tasting menu, rice dishes, seafood, a vegetarian menu, a great wine list.
• The setting: a terrace, a sea view, a private room, a counter seat at the kitchen.
• The practical details: open on Sunday evening, near a landmark, good for a group of ten.
• The language: guests visiting from abroad ask in their own language.

Write down the ten to fifteen questions that should lead to you. These are the questions you want to win.

2. Make your website answer them, as text

AI can only recommend you for what it can read. Most restaurant websites are beautiful but say very little that an AI tool can use.

• Put your menu and prices on the page as text. A PDF or a photo of the menu is hard for AI to read.
• Show your opening hours, address, phone number and a clear booking link on every page.
• Give the things guests ask about a page or a section of their own: the tasting menu, the terrace, private dining, the wine list.
• Label your key details with structured data (schema.org markup for a restaurant, its menu, hours and location), so AI tools read them correctly.
• Publish the main pages in the languages your guests use.

3. Let AI search tools reach your website

Check that your website doesn’t turn AI tools away. Your robots.txt file and your hosting’s firewall should let in AI search crawlers such as OAI-SearchBot (ChatGPT), Claude-SearchBot (Claude) and PerplexityBot. Gemini answers from Google Search, so being properly indexed by Google matters too.

Bot protection is the most common culprit: a setting meant to stop scrapers can block the crawlers that would recommend you. Ask whoever manages your website to check.

4. Be in the guides and listings AI reads

AI tools lean on sources they trust. For restaurants in Spain, that means the Michelin Guide, Repsol and Guidavera, the guide for Spain, along with your Google Business Profile, TheFork and Tripadvisor.

Claim and complete every listing you can: the same name, address, hours, cuisine, price range and booking link everywhere. When your listings disagree with each other or with your website, AI has a reason to doubt them.

5. Get named where AI looks for recommendations

AI recommends what many independent sources agree on. Features in the food press, local guides and “best of” round-ups are among the pages AI cites most when it answers questions about where to eat.

The aim isn’t volume. It’s a few good sources telling the same story as your website: what you are, what you’re known for, and who you’re right for.

6. Check where you stand, question by question

Ask your questions in ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude with web search switched on, and note who is named, in what order and which pages are cited. Ask more than once: answers change from one moment to the next, so the trend over weeks matters more than any single answer.

Or run our free AI Visibility Report. It asks the three platforms the questions your guests ask, shows who they recommend instead of you and why, and gives you a plan of action.

What doesn’t work

• Fake reviews and paid rankings. They break the rules of the platforms, and AI weighs many sources, not one.
• Pages stuffed with keywords. AI reads for meaning; a clear answer beats repetition.
• A one-off fix. AI tools update what they know on their own schedule, and your rivals keep moving. It works best as a monthly habit.