The Lovely Pictures on Restaurant Websites....

[eatenmess]

ive had enough now of it. im not going on another restaurant website again.

i was looking through a website just now, they specialises in silverware, plates, glasses, light fittings and corners of a table.

oh wait no, no that wasnt what i was doing at all. i was on the Gauthier (soho, london) website. silly me. what a stupid mistake to make. but its not.

what goes through a photographers minds when he thinks yeh, i know what people who go on restaurant websites want to see, they want to see pictures of empty plates and glasses, tables with no one on and the close up face of a chef chopping something you cant even see?

im not picking Gauthier for any other reason than it happened to be the last one i was on using this sytle of website. so no offence to them, just their choice of pictures for a website for a restaurant. which apparently serves food and its not actually BYOF and BYOB

theres so many resturant sites that do this, why? do they really think anyone cares about a picture of some glasses? the edge of a plate? then the same plate but birds eye view? there is one plate of a food and a picture of some asparagus. i know its just the website but come on, dont just open up, lob a dish together and take a pic of it and then get the gorky photographer to take a few pics of some crockery.

anyone else miffed by this trend by mainly restaurants with about as much atmosphere as a dentist's waiting room and half 8 in the morning? or is it just me with this rant?

Edited June 17, 2010 by eatenmess (log)

[SusieQ]

I'm with you on this one, eatenmess. I'm interested in the menu and prices and if photos, photos of the FOOD!

SusieQ

[chileheadmike]

Worse than inane pictures of empty plates and glasses is when you hit the website and you get some sappy music.

That's when I hit the back button, I'm out.

Give me:

Hours of Operations

Menu

Directions

Maybe a pic or two of the food.

If you want to publish the Chef's mission statement, fine.

[localherbavore]

Agreed. Our place just hired a new photograher and (thank god) he actually is a food stylist too. Our old website guy was into that whole "moving shots" thing. It made everything seem out of focus and hurried, not the artistic portayal of our plates like I think he was going for. I can't wait to see the new website photos.

[Kim Shook]

And why do so many restaurant websites forget to mention what city and state/country they are in? It's the INTERNET folks. I can stumble onto a website for a restaurant in Outer Mongolia from my little house in Virginia. I'd love to know if it's possible for me to actually GET THERE!

[azmilsyahmi]

Well most chefs I have worked with don't like putting pictures of their dishes on menus, posters or even their website. They are afraid that the food might not come out to the table same as what is advertised if they are not around.

But they forget something if the picture of the food is taken out beautfully and it looks yummy, you will get a lot more orders. This I found true when I put pictures of the food next to their explanation. In the past people ordered food that they were familiar with like something from the local area but with the pics they tried other items.By the way my present chef is OK with putting pictures in the menus and website cause he makes sure his staff follow the pictures

[Edward J]

It was explained to me the reason why no diners are shown or no food is shown is that so the customer can imagine thenmselves at the table instead of looking at a model.

Does this make sense? Not to me, anyway

My site features mostly food, some of my classes with kids, and information. Don't have my city/location in bold on the main page, but it is very clear in the "contact us" page.

[ScottyBoy]

A big selling point for me is drawing people in with food pictures, practiced a lot and now take some pretty nice ones.