Behind every great meal...
The grocery list is the unsung hero of the kitchen. But the friction of creating it—the messy notes and forgotten items—often kills the joy of cooking. Opabinia creates that perfect list for you, turning friction into flow.
Using an iPhone?
Get notified when the iOS app is ready!
From Any Mess... to a Perfect List
Scan a messy website, a handwritten note, or even a text message.
1. A Video Recipe
2. Scan with App
3. The Clean List
This is Where Inspiration Meets Friction
It's the mental juggling of what you already own. The tedious, manual typing of a dozen ingredients. The nagging fear of forgetting one critical item. This is the friction that kills culinary motivation before you even preheat the oven.
Cognitive Load
The mental juggling of recipes, inventory, and preferences that leads to errors and forgotten ingredients.
Translation Friction
The tedious, manual work of converting "I want to make lasagna" into a perfect, itemised shopping list.
Decision Fatigue
The hundreds of small choices that drain your energy before you even pick up a knife.
Your Hero's Journey to a Perfect Meal
Opabinia is your Recipe Enabler. Here's the shortcut to turning any recipe into a perfect meal.
Turn Any Recipe Into One Smart List
Scan a photo, upload a screenshot, or paste messy text. Our smart technology instantly understands and extracts the ingredients, and our Smart Staging Area automatically merges duplicates from all your week's recipes into a single, efficient list.
Know Exactly What's Ready to Cook
As you shop, your list is alive. The Dynamic Recipe Coverage bar fills up with every item you check off, giving you the gamified satisfaction of knowing the moment a meal is 100% ready to go.
The Victorious Feast Awaits
End your trip to see a celebratory Last Trip Summary. No more guessing—you get instant confirmation of which amazing meals you're fully prepped to cook. The friction is conquered.
Built for the Way You Cook
Whether you're planning for a family or experimenting with new flavours, Opabinia adapts to you.
For the Busy Parent
Conquer the 5 PM scramble. Opabinia turns your weekly meal plan into a foolproof shopping list, eliminating that last-minute "I forgot the stock!" run. Enjoy calmer evenings and more time at the dinner table, not stressing in the grocery aisle.
For the Culinary Adventurer
You just found the perfect recipe. Don't let the hassle of typing out 20 ingredients kill your creative spark. Opabinia captures everything in seconds, so you can spend your energy on perfecting the flavour, not on tedious list-making.
For the Savvy Planner
End the tragedy of wilted herbs and stop re-buying your third jar of cumin. Opabinia helps you shop your pantry first and consolidates your list, reducing food waste and saving you money on every single trip.
Equip Your Hero
Start your journey for free. Upgrade to give your Unsung Hero unlimited power.
The Starter Kit (Free)
The essential hero kit to start overcoming kitchen friction.
$0
- 10 Smart Scans per day
- Store up to 3 recipes
- All core "Unsung Hero" features
The Ultimate Toolkit (Gold)
Unleash your hero's full potential for ultimate peace of mind.
AU$3.99 / month
- Unlimited Smart Scans & Recipes
- Offline Mode for any location
- Early access to new features
Built for the Recipes You Already Love
We believe the best recipes are "battle-tested"—the ones from your
favourite cookbook, a screenshot from a blog, or even your grandma's
handwritten note.
Other apps lock you into their recipe database. We built Opabinia on
a different idea:
your app should work with *your* recipes, not the other
way around.
As a sole developer, I created Opabinia to be a truly
open cooking companion. It's built to handle
any recipe from any source, so you can focus on
the joy of cooking the meals you already trust.
— Mike Chiao, Founder
Read more about the journey on SubstackFrom the Kitchen
See the philosophy in action with recipes and stories from my own kitchen.
Frequently Asked Questions
Have a question? We've got answers.
Not at all. A notes app is a "dumb list"—it's a blank page that forces you to do all the work. Opabinia is a "smart list"—an active assistant. It uses AI to automatically extract ingredients from any recipe, merges duplicates from multiple recipes, and even knows what you might already have in your inventory. It's designed to offload the mental work of meal planning so you can focus on cooking.
Almost anything! You can use your phone's camera to scan a recipe from a cookbook, upload a screenshot from a website or social media, or simply paste in messy, unstructured text. Our smart technology is trained to handle a wide variety of formats to give you maximum flexibility.
The free version is designed to let you experience the core magic of the app. You can perform up to 10 smart scans per day and store a total of 3 recipes at a time. If you hit your recipe limit, you can simply delete an old one to make room for a new one.
Opabinia Gold is for those who want to fully eliminate kitchen friction. You get unlimited smart scans* and can save an unlimited number of recipes*. Gold also gives you full offline capabilities by storing more data on your device and grants you early access to powerful new features like Predictive Inventory and Shopping Trip History as they are released.
Currently, Opabinia is available exclusively for Android. As a sole developer, my focus has been on perfecting the experience on one platform first. An iOS version is definitely on the roadmap! You can sign up for the waitlist right on this page to be the first to know.
* "Unlimited" constitutes a fair use policy of up to 1,000 scans per day, which is more than enough for even the most dedicated home cooks.
You are the hero of your kitchen.
It's time you had the right guide. Download Opabinia and transform the most stressful part of cooking into your greatest strength.
Using an iPhone?
Get notified when the iOS app is ready!