How to photograph your dishes for a QR menu
Published
On a QR menu, the photo often sells a dish before the guest even reads the price. The good news: you need neither a photographer nor an expensive camera. A recent phone, light from a window and a quiet hour are enough, as long as you follow a few simple rules.
Start the free trialPick the right time and place
Shoot outside service hours, mid-morning or mid-afternoon, when the kitchen has time to plate with care. Plan one session for the whole menu rather than random shots over weeks: the photos will match and the menu will look like one piece.
Set a table near a large window, or on the terrace in the shade. Soft, indirect daylight is the best light there is. Avoid direct sun, which casts hard shadows and burns out whites, and kitchen neon, which turns everything greenish.
Light: never use the flash
Turn the flash off. It kills depth, makes sauces shine and flattens everything. Place the plate so the light comes from the side or slightly from behind: the steam of a harira, the gloss of a tajine and the layers of a msemen come out far better.
If one side of the dish is too dark, prop a white sheet of paper or light card on the other side to bounce the light back. It is the cheapest reflector you will ever own.
Framing: two angles are enough
Two angles cover nearly any menu. Straight from above for flat things: pizza, salad, a full breakfast, msemen with honey. From a three-quarter angle, at the eye level of a seated guest, for anything with height: burgers, tajines, a glass of juice, mint tea with its teapot.
Fill the frame with the dish, without much empty space around it but without cutting off important edges. On a menu the photo shows small on a phone screen, so the dish must be recognisable at a glance.
Plating: the real dish, just tidier
Photograph the portion the guest actually gets, on the plates you use every day. A photo more generous than the real plate leads to disappointment, and sometimes to reviews that say so.
Wipe the rim, remove crumbs, add the usual garnish (mint, parsley, lemon). Shoot hot dishes the moment they leave the kitchen. For drinks: a clean glass, no fingerprints, fresh ice.
One simple background for the whole menu
Choose a background and stick with it: your wooden table, a plain cloth, a copper tray or zellige if it fits your place. The same background and the same angle across a category make the menu look clean and serious.
Remove anything distracting: phones, ashtrays, sugar sachets, hands or chairs in the background.
Make a shot list, category by category, starting with your best-selling dishes and drinks, and tick each one off as you go. Write down the angle and background you chose, so whoever shoots a new dish six months from now does exactly the same.
Phone settings
Wipe the lens with a clean cloth before you start, since one fingerprint blurs every shot. Tap the screen on the dish to focus, and lower the brightness slightly if the whites are blown out.
Stay on the normal camera, with no strong filters or beauty mode. A small brightness tweak or a crop is enough. Colours must stay true: a neon orange tajine does not make anyone hungry.
Common mistakes
Using photos found online, which do not show your dish and often belong to someone else. Mixing night and day shots. Shooting under neon. Showing a portion that does not exist. Keeping the photo of a dish whose recipe or presentation has changed.
Putting it into practice with Tablilo
In Tablilo, photos are optional: you can open without them and add them dish by dish from your phone. For a few signature dishes, a short 3 second video, steam rising or cheese stretching, can replace the photo.
The menu shows in French, Arabic and English, and sold-out dishes are greyed, so you never push a lovely photo of something you cannot serve. You can test it with your own menu during the free trial.
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