LONDON — Resy, the US-based and American Express-owned restaurant booking platform, has appointed Hope&Glory as its first retained PR agency in the UK.

Resy’s competitors in the UK include OpenTable and Seven Rooms, although the platform positions itself as being somewhere to discover new restaurants rather than just being a means of booking them.

Hope&Glory’s brief includes promoting initiatives and programmes that encourage diners to try new places to eat, such as ‘The Women of Food’, celebrating female representation across the hospitality industry, and the release of Resy’s inaugural ‘Future of Dining Out’ trend report. The agency will also support Resy and American Express’ sponsorship of the annual World’s 50 Best Restaurants awards in London in July and the London Restaurant Festival in October.

Resy does not currently have an agency in the US: it handles all PR and communications in-house. Chief marketing officer Hannah Kelly told PRovoke Media: “Everyone at Resy is obsessed with restaurants and we channel that passion into guides and features on Resy.com, events featuring Resy restaurants, and really everything we do. When you open the Resy app, you’ll find a curated list of great restaurants to book, whether it’s a critically-acclaimed establishment or one of East London’s many excellent independent, neighborhood spots.

“We also value having personal relationships with our restaurant partners and aim to be a resource that goes beyond just our technology: Resy OS – which restaurants use to manage pre-, during- and post-service touchpoints - is offered at a fair price, as to not detract from restaurants’ bottom lines; this is more important than ever as operating costs continue to rise.”

Resy and American Express Dining’s director of experiential and PR Vanessa Leitman added: “We were so impressed with Hope&Glory’s strategic response to our brief, backed with strong creative ideas and a proactive attitude from the whole team. This year is a really exciting one for Resy in the UK and we are so pleased to have Hope&Glory on board to support.”

Hope&Glory associate director Jen Murdoch, who will lead the account with senior account director Alicia Bult, said: “The team couldn’t be more excited to get stuck into this brief. Resy has already built relationships with an incredible array of London restaurants whilst creating industry-leading initiatives, and we’re looking forward to bringing these places and stories to more people, ultimately helping foodies to search and discover places to have great food.”