I saved $1,700 eating leftover food from NYC’s top restaurants — here’s the gourmet haul I got for mere dollars

Like so many other New Yorkers, Hani Mahmoud loves to go out to eat and try new things — but in an inflation-plagued city where everything seems to cost too much, the Upper West Sider struggles to avoid going broke from his love of food.

And while landing a good meal for, say, $10 in 2024 might seem like a 1950s pipe dream, Mahmoud has found a way to regularly score enviable eats on the cheap by bagging uneaten grub that restaurants plan to throw out.

It’s a hobby that has saved him nearly $1,700 in just two years — and no, he’s not a dumpster diver.

The 32-year-old public health worker uses TooGoodToGo, an app imported from Denmark that strives to curb food waste by helping customers find and “rescue” unwanted food from eateries and groceries — like a truffle hound, except the prize is a discount meal from a pricey venue like Eataly.

From there, Mahmoud scored a lavish meal comprised of a 9×11 inch sheet pan of lasagna, along with focaccia, salad and other top-notch items, all for a paltry $12 — around half the price of a far more basic burger meal at a Five Guys outlet in NYC.

“It sounded like a great way to try different restaurants around the city at a fraction of the cost,” New Yorker Mahmoud told The Post of giving the app — which launched here in 2020 — a whirl.