Cape Town Restaurant Photography: A Practical Guide for Delivery Apps, Google and Menus

What each channel actually needs from your photos

Delivery apps, Google Business Profile, your website and Instagram do different jobs, so shoot once and crop per channel rather than re-shooting for each. A delivery app thumbnail is viewed small and fast, so the dish must fill most of the frame with no clutter. Google Business Profile shows images in a grid and in map results, so a clean, bright hero shot of your signature dish works better than a wide dining-room photo. Your printed menu and QR menu need consistent framing across the whole page.

Shoot the master image as a square (1:1) at the highest resolution your phone allows, then crop down. A 16:9 crop suits a website banner or a Google cover image; a 4:5 crop suits Instagram feed posts. Keep the dish centered with a little breathing room on all sides so the square, 4:5 and 16:9 crops all work from the same file.

• Square 1:1 master for delivery thumbnails and menu grids
• 4:5 crop for Instagram feed
• 16:9 crop for website banners and Google cover
• Shoot at the phone's highest resolution, then crop, never upscale

A seasonal window-light schedule for Cape Town

Around the December solstice Cape Town gets about 14 h 16 min of daylight and the noon sun sits about 80 degrees above the horizon. That high summer sun throws short, hard shadows and blows out highlights on glossy plates, so avoid shooting near midday. Around the June solstice daylight drops to about 9 h 44 min and the noon sun reaches only about 33 degrees, which means low, long light through windows for much of the day and a much narrower useful window.

In summer, shoot in the two to three hours after opening and the two hours before sunset, when the sun is lower and light comes in at a slant. Put the dish beside a window, not in direct sun: place it roughly a meter back from the glass and let the light fall from the side so texture on grilled fish, bread or roasted vegetables reads clearly. In winter, the low sun means a north-facing window gives soft light for most of the morning; shoot between mid-morning and early afternoon and use a white wall or a sheet of white card on the opposite side of the dish to bounce light back into the shadow side.

If you shoot near a window at midday in summer, diffuse the light with a thin white curtain or a sheet of baking parchment taped to the frame. Keep the phone parallel to the dish for flat-lay menu shots, or at about a 45-degree angle for plated dishes where height matters, such as a stacked burger or a bowl of seafood.

• Summer (December): shoot early morning or late afternoon, never at noon
• Winter (June): soft side light from mid-morning to early afternoon
• Place dishes about a meter inside the window, never in direct sun
• Bounce light back with white card on the shadow side

Delivery apps in South Africa: Mr D and Uber Eats

Restaurants in Cape Town list on delivery apps operating in South Africa, including Mr D and Uber Eats. Each app sets its own image requirements, so check the upload screen in your partner dashboard before you export, since the app will show you the accepted dimensions and file limits at the point of upload. This site publishes a photo spec page for Uber Eats South Africa at /delivery-photo-specs/uber-eats/south-africa/, which covers that app's requirements; use it as your reference for Uber Eats and check Mr D's own partner documentation for its upload rules.

For both apps, the practical rules are the same: one dish per photo, the food filling most of the frame, no hands, no menus in shot, no text overlays, and a background that does not compete with the plate. Shoot on a plain surface, a dark wooden board or a clean counter, and keep the same surface across your menu so the listing looks consistent. Avoid heavy steam and wet garnish that goes limp before you finish shooting.

Google Business Profile and your own menu

Google Business Profile is often the first place a diner sees your food, so upload a set of clear dish photos rather than only interior shots. Use the 16:9 crop for the cover and 1:1 for the rest. Keep the file names descriptive and the photos recent; swap out seasonal dishes when the menu changes.

For your printed menu and QR menu, consistency matters more than variety. Use the same crop, the same background and roughly the same light across every dish so the page reads as one menu. If you print, export at high resolution and check the images at actual print size before sending to the printer. For a QR menu, keep file sizes modest so the page loads quickly on mobile data.

If your menu is written in more than one language, English, Afrikaans and Zulu are all commonly used on menus nationally, keep the photo set identical across language versions so you are not re-shooting for each.

Shooting your own dishes without a studio

You do not need a studio. A window, a white wall, a clean surface and a phone are enough if you control the light. Turn off overhead lights and the phone flash, because mixed color temperatures make food look grey or orange. Shoot each dish within a minute or two of plating, while it still looks like what leaves the kitchen.

Shoot a small set per session: your best-selling dishes, your highest-margin dishes and anything new. Five to eight dishes per session is enough to refresh a menu section without turning it into a full-day production. Keep a note of which dish is which so you can match files to menu items later.

FoodPhoto takes a real photo of the restaurant's own dish and improves light, background and crop for menus, delivery apps and social, keeping the food as it is, and every photo comes as a kit of sizes. For Cape Town operators, that means one shoot by the window can serve your own website, Instagram, Google Business Profile, QR menu and print.

Keeping photos accurate and honest

The most common complaint about restaurant photos is that the dish does not match what arrives. Shoot the actual portion you serve, on the actual plate you serve it on, with the garnishes you actually use. If a dish changes seasonally, re-shoot it rather than leaving an old photo up.

Do not add props that are not part of the dish, and do not swap in a larger portion for the photo. Accurate photos reduce complaints on delivery orders and set the right expectation in the dining room. Keep a simple file naming system by dish and date so you know when each photo was taken.