Menu Photography in Brussels: Shooting a Whole Menu Consistently

Plan the shot list before you cook anything

Start from your actual menu, not from the dishes you like photographing. Export the current menu as a list and mark every item that needs an image: starters, mains, sides, sauces, desserts, drinks. Group them by how they are plated, because a bowl of moules, a plate of carbonnade flamande and a stack of waffles each need a different camera height and background.

Decide on one backdrop and one surface for the whole shoot. A neutral mid-grey or a matte dark surface works for most dishes and keeps the grid from looking like a patchwork. Belgian brasserie plates, frites in a paper cone and chocolate desserts all read differently against white, so test three surfaces with one representative dish before committing.

Set a target list of crops per dish. You will need at least a square for feed grids and thumbnails, a wide landscape for menu boards and website banners, and a tall crop for phone screens. Shooting slightly wider than you need leaves room to make all three from one frame.

• One dish, one clean frame, one background for the entire menu
• Shoot the full list in plating order, not menu order
• Leave headroom and side space so square and tall crops both work
• Photograph sauces and sides as separate items if they are sold separately

A seasonal daylight schedule for Brussels window light

Brussels daylight swings hard across the year. Around the June solstice the city gets about 16 h 17 min of daylight and the noon sun reaches about 63 degrees above the horizon, which means strong, high light and long working days. Around the December solstice it drops to about 7 h 43 min of daylight with a noon sun only about 16 degrees above the horizon, so the light stays low, soft and short-lived.

From roughly April to September, shoot between 10:00 and 14:00 next to a north-facing window, or a window with sheer diffusion, and you will have plenty of brightness without direct sun hitting the plate. Avoid the hours when low sun angles straight into a south or west window, which throws hard shadows across the food.

From October to March, the useful window shrinks to roughly 11:00 to 14:00, and the low sun means direct light comes in almost horizontally. Use a sheer curtain or a diffuser panel and place the plate about a meter back from the glass. Batch your shoot into that three-hour block and prep dishes in advance so nothing waits under the light.

Regardless of season, keep the camera on a tripod and the plate in the same spot for every dish. Consistent distance and height matter more than perfect light, because the menu will be judged as a set.

Batch shooting without losing consistency

Batch by plating style: all bowls together, all flat plates together, all handheld items together. This lets you set one camera height and one lighting setup per group instead of readjusting for every dish. A typical setup is a 45 degree angle for plated mains, a straight overhead 90 degree shot for pizzas, flatbreads and sharing boards, and eye level for burgers and tall desserts.

Shoot the same dish in two or three variants only when it genuinely differs, for example a portion with and without a side. Otherwise one strong frame per item keeps the menu clean and the editing fast.

Keep a simple log as you shoot: file number, dish name, section of the menu, and whether the photo is approved. This log becomes the source for naming files and for tracking which images still need a reshoot.

• 45 degrees for plated mains, 90 degrees overhead for flat dishes, eye level for tall items
• Shoot tethered or review on a large screen between batches
• Mark rejects immediately so they never reach the menu
• Photograph garnishes and sides separately if they are upsold

Naming files so the menu stays findable

Use a fixed pattern: menu section, dish name, crop type, version. For example starters-moules-frites-square-v2. Lowercase, hyphens, no spaces and no accents keeps files readable across systems and avoids broken links on your website.

Keep the original uncropped frame and the exported crops in separate folders. When a dish changes, you replace the crop, not the original, and the version number tells you which is current. Name the folder by shoot date so you can find the most recent set quickly.

If your menu exists in Dutch, French and German, put the language in the filename only when the image itself contains text. A photograph of the dish does not need a language tag, but a menu board mockup does.

Keeping photos in sync with menu changes

Menu changes are the main reason restaurant photo sets go stale. When a dish is removed, its photo should come down from every place it appears: the printed PDF, the QR menu, the website and each delivery listing. Build a short monthly check where you compare the live menu against the image folder.

Seasonal specials deserve their own folder and their own short shoot. Photograph them in the same style as the core menu so a winter stew does not look like it came from a different restaurant than the summer salads.

Allergen information is a separate legal duty from photography. Under EU Regulation 1169/2011, information on the 14 regulated allergens must be available for food sold without packaging, and for distance selling, including delivery apps, the mandatory information must be available before the purchase is concluded. A photo never replaces that information, and a photo should not suggest ingredients the dish does not contain, so avoid styling with nuts, dairy or gluten unless the recipe includes them.

If you want the light, background and crop improved on your own real photos for your website menu, QR menu, Instagram or print, FoodPhoto takes a real photo of the restaurant's own dish and keeps the food as it is, returning each photo as a kit of sizes.

Platform specs and what to check before uploading

This site publishes delivery photo spec pages for Uber Eats in Belgium at /delivery-photo-specs/uber-eats/belgium/ and for Deliveroo in Belgium at /delivery-photo-specs/deliveroo/belgium/. Takeaway.com also operates in Belgium; where a platform does not publish pixel specs, check the upload screen in the merchant portal for its current requirements.

Deliveroo do not accept AI-generated or altered images. For that platform, shoot and upload your own real photo of the dish. The same discipline applies to any listing: the image should show the portion a customer actually receives.

Keep a master export at the largest size you need, then create the smaller crops from it. Uploading a small image and letting the platform enlarge it is the most common reason a good photo looks soft in the feed.