Remembering Which Coffee Shop (and Order) Was Actually Good

I kept having the same small problem: I'd try a new coffee shop, order something I liked, and forget the useful details a few weeks later. Sometimes it was the place itself, sometimes it was the specific drink. Notes apps were too messy for that, spreadsheets were too much friction, and most tracking apps I tried were built for one narrow use case and broke down the moment I wanted something more flexible. Provato is the local-first iPhone app I built instead: save the experience first, add details only when they matter, and let the history become useful over time.

What Provato does

I wanted one place where I could log something I tried in a few taps, keep repeat visits connected to the same place, save wishlist ideas for later, and add notes, ratings, dates, prices, photos, tags, and locations when they were actually useful. That combination turned out to be the important part: I mainly wanted this for coffee shops and repeat orders, but it needed to work for restaurants and similar places too, without forcing a rigid format.

Provato is built around that log-first workflow. Instead of making you build a detailed library upfront, it starts from the thing you want to remember right now, and builds a timeline that gets more useful every time you come back to it.

• Logs: save the real experience first
• Library: keep all tracked items in one place
• Wishlist: store things you want to try later
• Stats and filters: review patterns once your history grows

In practice that covers restaurants and coffee shops, casual places worth revisiting, and specific drinks or dishes worth ordering again.

Why the history matters more on the second visit

The second or third visit to a place is often more interesting than the first, which is the useful part of keeping a history at all. If you go back to the same cafe or restaurant, Provato keeps those entries together instead of scattering them across unrelated notes, so it's easy to compare what changed, what was worth repeating, and what probably wasn't. A one-off note reminds you that something happened; a timeline shows you a pattern.

Local-first, no accounts, no tracking

Provato is local-first by design. You do not need a Provato account, there are no ads, and there are no third-party analytics SDKs in the app. Your library stays on your device and can sync through iCloud when available. Photos, camera access, and location are optional, so you only enable the context you want. It is the same local-first approach behind Yore and Baby Book Tracker: the data is personal, and it should stay on your device by default.

Provato is available on iPhone: download it from the App Store. It starts free with up to five items, with a one-time upgrade for unlimited items instead of a subscription. Screenshots, a feature breakdown, and an FAQ are at provato.montalesi.dev.

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