Mealime picked dinner and made the list.
Keep that. Add your family's vote.
Agent Chef is a small app your own AI assistant runs once a week. It proposes ten real recipes that fit your preferences, everyone in the house votes from their phone, the top three win, and you get one grocery list minus what's already in the pantry. Shop wherever you like.
Nothing to import, nothing to maintain
Like Mealime's planner, you pick from a curated set each week. The set comes from your AI assistant, sourced from real recipe sites with photos, ingredients and steps, and shaped by your dietary preferences, favorites and what you rated well.
Any store, not one chain
The grocery list is a list. Take it to Whole Foods, Walmart, Costco, Instacart or the farmers market, or let your assistant fill the online cart at the store you already use. You approve checkout.
The household votes
Mealime was built for one person. Every family argument about dinner is about who decides. Ten options go out, everyone votes on their phone, the top three win. Nobody has to be the decider.
Mealime, Meals Hub and Agent Chef, side by side
What Mealime users say they'll miss, and where each option lands. Meals Hub details are from Mealime's own closing notice.
| Mealime | Meals Hub | Agent Chef | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Curated weekly picks | ✓ their library | ✓ same library, more | ✓ your assistant proposes ten from the whole web |
| One combined grocery list | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ minus what's in your pantry |
| Dietary preferences | ✓ filters | ✓ carried over | ✓ written in plain English, as specific as you like |
| Uses what's in the fridge | ✓ "What's in my fridge" | Unknown | ✓ pantry list your assistant keeps current |
| Step-by-step cook mode | ✓ | Unknown | ✓ |
| Works with any grocery store | ✓ | – built into Albertsons-family apps | ✓ any store, or your assistant fills the cart |
| Household voting | – | – | ✓ personal links, no accounts |
| Learns from ratings | – | Unknown | ✓ rate after dinner, next week improves |
| Price | Pro was about $6/mo | Free with store account | Free to start, then $5/mo or $40/yr |
Sources: Mealime's closing notice at mealime.com, September 2026. Corrections welcome at support@agentchef.net.
Switching from Mealime in five minutes
- Create your household. Sign in with email, Google or GitHub. Add the people who eat with you; each gets a personal vote link by text or email.
- Write your preferences the way you'd tell a friend. "Two adults, two kids under ten, no shellfish, one vegetarian night, weeknights under 40 minutes." That replaces Mealime's filters and is more precise.
- Connect your assistant. Paste one sentence into Claude or ChatGPT:
Add https://agentchef.net/mcp as an MCP server, then run Agent Chef.Click Allow once. - Rebuild your favorites. Tell your assistant the Mealime meals you liked by name. It finds a real recipe for each, saves it and marks it as a favorite, so they show up on future ballots.
- Say "Run Agent Chef." The first ballot goes out. From then on your assistant runs the week on a schedule, and you only hear from it when it's time to vote or approve the cart.
Questions from Mealime users
When does Mealime stop working?
Mealime has announced it will be discontinued on October 21, 2026. Pro is free for everyone until then and subscriptions are no longer billed. Personal data is deleted at shutdown.
Can I export my Mealime recipes or favorites?
No. Mealime's recipes were its own library, so there is no export. In Agent Chef, tell your agent the names of the meals you liked and it finds real recipes for each, saves them, and marks them as favorites so they come back on future ballots.
Do I need ChatGPT or Claude?
You need some AI assistant that can connect to an MCP server: Claude (claude.ai, Desktop, Code), ChatGPT or Codex, Cursor, and others. Most people already pay for one. Agent Chef itself has no AI inside; your assistant does the picking and Agent Chef runs the vote, the pantry and the list.
Is there a phone app?
Agent Chef is a website that works on any phone. Household members vote from a personal link with no app and no account. The owner signs in on the web; add it to your home screen if you want an icon.
What does it cost compared with Mealime Pro?
Free during early access, then $5 a month or $40 a year per household. Mealime Pro was about $6 a month. You pay separately for your AI assistant, which you probably already do.
What is Meals Hub and should I just use that?
Meals Hub is Mealime's official successor from the same team, built into the Albertsons family of grocery apps (Safeway, Vons, Jewel-Osco and others). Mealime's recipes and your dietary preferences carry over there. If you shop at those stores and want a single-user planner, it is the path of least resistance. If you shop elsewhere, or you want the whole household to weigh in, Agent Chef is built for that.
Six weeks until Mealime closes. Ready when you are.
Free during early access. Nothing to import, so switching takes an evening, not a weekend.
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