Acceptance
By using Carteau, including the iPhone app or website at carteau.app, or by submitting menu photos, you agree to these Terms of Use.
Service description
Carteau is a crowdsourced menu registry and map for restaurants, cafés, and bars. Menu data may be incomplete, outdated, extracted by automated analysis, or otherwise inaccurate. Carteau is provided for informational purposes only.
User contributions
When you submit menu photos, you confirm that you have the right to provide them and grant Carteau a license to store, process (including with automated analysis), and publish extracted menu facts derived from those photos.
Photos remain private and are not displayed in a public gallery. Extracted menu facts may appear in search results and venue listings. Do not upload personal, unlawful, unrelated, or offensive material.
Prohibited content
- Personal information, faces, or unrelated people
- Nudity, pornography, or other sexual or adult content
- Receipts or documents containing personal data
- Material you do not have the right to share
- Unlawful, harassing, or spam content
Content moderation
Carteau may reject, correct, merge, or remove submissions at its discretion. To report a concern about content or processing, email emilian.scheel@gmail.com.
Accuracy disclaimer
Menu items, prices, dietary flags (vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free), ingredients, and opening hours are informational and may be crowdsourced or AI-extracted. Always verify details with the venue, especially for allergies, intolerances, or other dietary requirements.
Alcohol content
Carteau may display drink listings and bar-related information for informational purposes only. Carteau does not sell alcohol. You are responsible for complying with local age and consumption laws.
Third-party data
Venue data may come from OpenStreetMap contributors under the Open Database License (ODbL) and from Apple Maps on iPhone. Third-party terms and licenses apply to their respective data and services.
Intellectual property
Carteau's name, design, and compiled dataset are protected by applicable law. Source code is available on GitHub under its repository license.
Disclaimer of warranties
Carteau is provided “as is” and “as available” without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including warranties of accuracy, availability, or fitness for a particular purpose.
Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent permitted by law, Emilian Scheel will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for any loss arising from reliance on menu information displayed in Carteau.
Indemnification
You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Emilian Scheel from claims arising out of your unlawful submissions or misuse of the service.
Availability
Carteau may change, suspend, or discontinue any part of the service at any time without notice.
Governing law
These Terms are governed by the laws of Norway, without regard to conflict-of-law principles.
Contact
Questions, removal requests, or legal notices:
Apple App Store
If you downloaded Carteau from the Apple App Store, you acknowledge that Apple is not a party to these Terms and has no obligation to furnish maintenance or support for the app.
Introduction
Effective October 2026. Carteau is operated by Emilian Scheel (individual developer). This Privacy Policy explains how Carteau collects, uses, and protects information when you use the Carteau iPhone app or website at carteau.app.
What Carteau does
Carteau is a crowdsourced menu registry and map for restaurants, cafés, and bars. You can browse venue menus, search dishes and drinks, and optionally contribute menu photos to improve the dataset. Carteau does not create user accounts.
Data we collect
- Location (iPhone app, when you allow it). Carteau uses your device location while the app is in use to center the map, show nearby venues, and improve venue search. When you search for venues, approximate coordinates may be sent to Carteau's servers and to OpenStreetMap-backed lookup services.
- Photos (contributions). If you contribute menu photos, Carteau receives images you capture with the camera, select from your photo library, or import from Files. Photos are uploaded to
api.carteau.appfor processing. - Search queries. Text you enter when searching menus or venues may be sent to Carteau's API to return results.
- Anonymous action counts (website). When you open a venue menu or click its Call or Website link, Carteau stores the venue, action, and time. If you choose to answer the follow-up question, we store your Yes, No, or Skip answer as a self-report. The action record contains no account ID, browser identifier, fingerprint, or IP address. A random ID links an answer to that single action; a pending ID may remain in this tab until you answer or close it.
- Contribution metadata. When you submit photos, Carteau receives the selected venue identifier or, for new venues, the name, coordinates, and optional address, phone number, and website you provide.
- Technical data. Carteau uses transient network information, such as your IP address, for rate limiting and abuse prevention at the edge. IP addresses are not durably stored as user profiles.
- Downloaded venue data. The iPhone app caches venue and menu data locally in SQLite on your device for offline use until you delete the app or its data.
How we use data
Carteau uses collected information to operate the map and search experience, process menu photo contributions, extract structured menu facts with automated analysis, maintain and improve the dataset, prevent abuse, and keep the service available.
Legal basis (GDPR)
Where the GDPR applies, Carteau processes data on the basis of legitimate interest in operating and improving the service, and on your voluntary action when you choose to submit menu photos or enable location access.
Third-party services
Carteau relies on third parties to provide the service, including:
Cloudflare- R2 — EU-jurisdiction photo storage.
- DNS and proxy — API and MCP traffic.
- CDN — illustration images served from
cdn.carteau.app.
- Railway
- API and MCP hosting and background jobs.
- PostgreSQL database.
- OpenRouter
- AI model routing for menu extraction.
Vercel- Web frontend hosting — Carteau's website.
OpenStreetMap- Overpass API — venue suggestions, details, and opening hours.
Apple- MapKit — place enrichment and directions on iPhone.
These providers process data according to their own terms and privacy policies where applicable.
Photo storage and AI processing
Uploaded menu photos are normalized, stored privately in an EU-jurisdiction Cloudflare R2 bucket, and processed with AI models through OpenRouter to extract menu facts such as dish names, prices, ingredients, and dietary flags. Photos are not exposed through a public gallery endpoint.
Data retention
Uploaded photos are retained until you request deletion or until they are no longer needed for operating the service. Extracted menu facts may remain in the public dataset after processing. Local app cache on your device persists until you remove the app or clear its data. Operational logs and error metadata may be retained for a limited period.
Your rights
Depending on your location, you may have the right to access, correct, delete, restrict, or object to processing of your information, and to request data portability. You may also lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority.
To exercise these rights, email emilian.scheel@gmail.com and include any contribution token or other details that help identify the submission.
Contact
Children's privacy
Carteau is not directed at children under 13. Do not submit photos that include minors or other personal information unrelated to menus.
Security
Carteau uses private object storage for uploaded photos, rate limiting, and edge abuse protections. No system is completely secure, but Carteau takes reasonable steps to protect submitted information.
International transfers
Carteau primarily processes and stores contribution data in the European Union through Railway and Cloudflare infrastructure. Some supporting services may process data in other regions according to their own policies.
Changes to this policy
Carteau may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Continued use of the service after changes become effective constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.
iPhone App Privacy summary
For App Store disclosure purposes, the Carteau iPhone app may collect precise location when you grant permission, photos you choose to upload, and product interaction data such as search queries sent to the API. Carteau does not use data for tracking across apps or websites and does not sell personal information.
Legal notice
This page provides the legal notice (Impressum) for Carteau in accordance with § 5 TMG and § 18 MStV. It is written in English for international accessibility.
Service provider
Emilian Scheel
Moosdorfstraße 10
12435 Berlin
Germany
Contact
Responsible for content
Responsible for content according to § 55 Abs. 2 RStV and § 18 Abs. 2 MStV:
Emilian Scheel
Moosdorfstraße 10
12435 Berlin
Germany
Dispute resolution
The European Commission provides a platform for online dispute resolution (ODR): ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr. We are not obliged or willing to participate in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board.
Contact
Bug reports
- Your device and iOS version (for app issues)
- Steps to reproduce the problem
- Screenshots, if helpful
Content reports
To report a concern about user-submitted content or processing, email with the subject line “Carteau content report”.
emilian.scheel@gmail.com