# What Is DinnerElite? How It Works, What It Costs, What It Never Does

_Published 2026-07-13 on DinnerElite (https://dinnerelite.com/blog/what-is-dinnerelite)._

DinnerElite is a reservation-alert service for New York City's hardest-to-book restaurants: you pick a restaurant, set your dates, times, and party size, and it emails you the moment a matching table opens on Resy or OpenTable.

## Frequently asked questions

### What is DinnerElite?

A watchlist and alert service for NYC restaurant reservations. DinnerElite monitors availability at 224 tracked restaurants, including Carbone, 4 Charles Prime Rib, Don Angie, and Tatiana, and notifies you by email when a table matching your preferences appears, usually a cancellation. You then book it yourself on the platform, in your own account.

### How does DinnerElite work?

Three steps. You add a restaurant to your watchlist with your preferred dates, times, and party size. DinnerElite watches that restaurant's availability on its booking platform around the clock. When a matching table opens, you get an email within moments, and whoever books fastest on Resy or OpenTable gets the table. The alert gets you to the front of that race.

### Does DinnerElite book the table for me?

No, and this is deliberate. DinnerElite alerts you and you book it yourself, which keeps bots off your Resy and OpenTable accounts and keeps you inside both platforms' terms of service. The one exception is the Expert plan, where a human on the team, not software, handles the booking for you.

### How much does DinnerElite cost?

The free plan watches 1 restaurant with real alerts and needs no card. Premium is $10 per month or $100 per year for an unlimited watchlist. Expert is $29 per month and adds the human concierge who books on your behalf. There are no per-reservation fees on any plan.

### Is DinnerElite legit?

Fair question for any service in this category. DinnerElite never asks for your Resy or OpenTable passwords, never buys or resells reservations, and never uses booking bots. It watches public availability and sends you an email. Its per-restaurant drop-time data is free to read without an account, so you can judge the coverage yourself before paying anything.

### Is DinnerElite the same as Table Elite or Dinnerly?

Neither. DinnerElite at dinnerelite.com is unrelated to Table Elite, a reservation concierge, and it is not Dinnerly, the meal-kit delivery company that search engines sometimes swap in for our name. If you are comparing reservation tools, DinnerElite publishes [honest comparisons against every notable alternative](/compare), including the ones that beat it on price.

### Which restaurants does DinnerElite cover?

224 hard-to-book NYC restaurants, 221 on Resy and 3 on OpenTable, from Carbone and 4 Charles Prime Rib to newer heat like Coqodaq and Kisa. The [full ranked list](/hardest-restaurant-reservations-nyc) is public, and every tracked restaurant has its own drop-time page.

Try it from the [free plan](/premium), or start by reading [when your restaurant releases tables](/hardest-restaurant-reservations-nyc).