The app also ties into 'Foodspotting', a social network where people snap pictures of their meals and rate them, providing users with an independent review source - although in smaller cites and more exclusive restaurants you might not get any pictures from Foodspotting.
Here's the features list from the Windows Store directory:
- Find restaurants near you
- See available tables in real time, in a list or on a map
- Narrow your search by cuisine, price, or neighbourhood
- View restaurant menus, diner ratings, and reviews from verified toptable diners
- Book special offers at great restaurants
- Add upcoming bookings to your calendar
- Pin upcoming booking details to your start screen
- Lockscreen support
- Tap to Share restaurants with others
The app ties in well with the Windows Phone environment. Naturally the geo-location capabilities are used (but you can also search for a specific location if you are travelling to somewhere and want to book ahead), you can get turn by turn directions, live tiles are supported, the Windows Phone sharing system is used, if you are a regular diner toptable lets you earn 'loyalty points', and the app can be set up to show information on the lock screen.
From their press release, Open Table's Managing Director Mike Xenakis talks about the mobile app:
"Mobile now accounts for a significant part of our business and is a major area of emphasis for our developers. The new toptable app for Windows Phone 8 makes finding and booking a restaurant on the go incredibly quick and easy. The Windows Phone 8 layout allowed for a beautiful, content-rich design to easily navigate thousands of bookable restaurants on toptable."
I get the feeling that I'm going to be using toptable as a "look what Windows Phone can do, and how nice it looks" demo app for some time. It's fast, it's easy to use, it presents all the information in a sensible way, and it's very easy to grasp what the app is doing and why it would be useful.
You can download the app for free from the Windows Store.