Mufaddal Pansari

A lot of restaurants in Dubai have a nice-looking Instagram feed and an empty Tuesday. The two things are not connected the way owners hope they are. A feed can be full of well-shot plates and still do nothing for the business, because looking good and driving footfall are not the same job. I have watched venues post beautiful photography for months and wonder why nobody is walking in off the back of it. The answer is almost always that the feed is decorating the brand instead of selling the...

A menu photo has one job. It has to make the diner point at it and say I want that one. Most menu photos do not do that job. They show the dish, which is not the same thing at all. There is a real difference between a photo that sits on a menu and a photo that sells the dish it is next to. One is a record, it proves the dish exists and roughly what it looks like. The other is a decision-maker, it makes the choice for the customer before they have finished reading the description. On a printed...

Most restaurant owners ask me the wrong question first. They ask what a food shoot costs. The better question, the one that actually decides whether the money was well spent, is what they are going to walk away holding once the shoot is over. Two restaurants can pay a similar amount and get completely different value. One books a shoot, gets eight photographs of eight dishes, and that is the end of it. The other books the same block of time, plans it properly, and walks away with a full month...