This map will let you know where all the hotties are dining in NYC

In a city that ranks restaurants by everything from pasta shape to bathroom wallpaper, it was only a matter of time before someone asked the real question: But are the people hot?

Enter LooksMapping, a new (and very online) interactive heat map that rates nearly 10,000 New York City restaurants not for their food or service—but for the supposed attractiveness of their diners. Created by 22-year-old San Franciscan coder and satirist Riley Walz, the project uses AI to comb through millions of Google Maps reviews and evaluate the profile photos of the reviewers, assigning each restaurant an average “hotness” score from 1 to 10.

RECOMMENDED: New Yorkers ranked second in most attractive Americans—here’s who’s allegedly hotter than us

Red pins mark hotspots with model-caliber clientele; blue ones, less so. Fanelli Cafe in SoHo? A certified downtown darling, but it only clocks in at 4.1. Meanwhile, Thai 55 in the West Village? Apparently crawling with 10s.

Sound ridiculous? It is—and deliberately so. “This website just puts reductive numbers on the superficial calculations we make every day,” the homepage reads. “A mirror held up to our collective vanity.” Even Walz himself told the New York Times that it can be “a bit janky,” noting the algorithm favors cues like clear photos and wedding dresses (hot) over blurry images (not). It's part satire, part social commentary—and fully going viral.

Still, the map taps into a real NYC fixation: choosing restaurants not for the risotto but for the scene. Just ask the creators of viral TikTok series like Where Hot Guys Eat IRL or influencers who regularly post about the best restaurants to meet rich, eligible men. LooksMapping may be flawed, but it's also feeding a very modern appetite.

The five highest-scoring NYC restaurants for “hot” diners right now:

1. Ubani Midtown (Midtown East)
2. Shinn WEST (Hell’s Kitchen)
3. KYU NYC (NoHo)
4. Aroy Dee Thai Kitchen (Financial District)
5. Thai 55 Carmine (West Village)

The five lowest-scoring NYC restaurants for “hot” diners right now:

1. Jimbos Hamburger (Harlem)
2. Hop Won Express (Midtown East)
3. Cocotazo (East Harlem)
4. Malone’s Irish Bar (Midtown East)
5. Michael’s New York (Midtown East)

Biases abound, from AI's racial skew to socioeconomic clustering. But as a reflection of the culture—and our shallow little hearts—it’s oddly spot-on.