Should restaurant menus include photos? Yes, with one rule.

Yes. With one rule: the plate has to look like the picture.

A photo answers the question every guest has and does not want to ask: what does it look like? Here is what the research found, and how to take photos that help instead of hurt.

What a photo does

Looking at a picture of food starts real reactions in the body. A 2016 review from the University of Oxford found that food images change brain activity, body responses and where people look, and more so when people are hungry.

That is the whole reason photos work. A hungry person sees the dish and wants it before they have read a word.

A 2017 study tested this on menus. When a dish had a plain, clear name and a picture next to it, people liked it more, were willing to pay more for it, and were more likely to say they would order it.

With a vague name, the picture did not always help. Some people liked the dish less with a photo than without one. So a photo next to "Chef's delight" can go either way. A photo next to "Grilled chicken, roast potatoes, lemon" sells.

A 2021 study of 420 people looking at online menus found the same two steps: a menu that looks good makes people want the food, and wanting the food makes them order.

If your menu is online, that is where most people meet it first. A page with a photo next to each dish and its price does this for every visitor.

The one rule

The same 2021 study came with a warning. A good photo raises what the guest expects, and the kitchen has to meet it.

So the rule is simple. Use photos of your own food, on your own plates, at the portion you serve. If the dish changes, change the photo.

A photo that looks better than the plate does not sell more. It sells once, and then it costs you a review.

A bad photo is worse than no photo. Dark, blurry, taken with a flash, or of a dish that has sat for ten minutes. Those make the food look old and the place look careless.

How to take them with a phone

You do not need a camera or a photographer. You need a window and ten minutes before lunch service.

1. Daylight. Put the plate near a window. No flash, no overhead lights.
2. Right away. Photograph the dish the minute it is plated, while the sauce is glossy and the greens are fresh.
3. Clean plate. Wipe the rim. A plain plate on a plain table keeps the eye on the food.
4. Two angles. One from straight above, one from low and close. Keep the one that shows the dish best.
5. Five shots, keep one. Move the plate, turn it, try again. Choose later, not during service.

On paper, one photo per section is enough. Online, every dish can have its own, because the page does the work and nothing needs reprinting. Start with the five dishes you most want to sell and add the rest over a few weeks.

Then read the short menu that is easy to order from. Plain names and good photos work together, and the study above shows why.

Common questions

Do pictures on menus increase sales?

The studies say yes, when the dish name is plain. A 2017 study found that a picture next to a clearly named dish raised how much people liked it, what they would pay and whether they would order it. Grubhub says restaurants with photos on its app get up to 70% more orders, though that is the company's own figure.

How do I take menu photos with a phone?

Use daylight from a window and no flash. Photograph the dish the minute it is plated, on a clean plate, from above or from a low angle. Keep the background plain. Take five shots and keep the best one.

Sources

1. Eating with our eyes: From visual hunger to digital satiation, Charles Spence, Katsunori Okajima, Adrian David Cheok, Olivia Petit and Charles Michel, Brain and Cognition 110 (2016)
2. Do pictures help? The effects of pictures and food names on menu evaluations, Yue Hou, Wan Yang and Yan Sun, International Journal of Hospitality Management 60 (2017)
3. The effect of online restaurant menus on consumers' purchase intentions during the COVID-19 pandemic, Prawannarat Brewer and Angela G. Sebby, International Journal of Hospitality Management (2021)
4. Grubhub adds new features in restaurants portal, Food On Demand, quoting Grubhub (2023)

Nicolae Cojuhari · Software engineer with a finance background. Founder of 1food.menu.