Restaurant Photography in Dublin: Delivery Apps, Google, Menus and Social

Plan your shoots around Dublin daylight

Around the June solstice Dublin gets roughly 16 hours 45 minutes of daylight, with the noon sun about 60 degrees above the horizon. Around the December solstice that drops to roughly 7 hours 15 minutes, and the noon sun sits only about 13 degrees up. In practice, summer gives you long, high, often harsh light; winter gives you a short window of low, soft, sideways light that rakes across a dish and throws long shadows.

That means your shooting calendar should not be the same all year. In summer, shoot between mid-morning and mid-afternoon but move the table back from the window or diffuse the light with a white blind, because a high sun through glass creates hard highlights on sauces and glossy glazes. In winter, the usable window is short: aim to have dishes plated and ready by late morning, and shoot side-on to the window so the low sun skims across texture instead of flattening it.

Also account for the Irish weather. Overcast days are not a problem for food photography; a bright overcast sky acts like a giant softbox and is often easier than direct sun. What you should avoid is mixing window light with warm overhead tungsten, which shifts white balance and makes greens and whites look muddy. Turn off ceiling lights, or shoot with the window as your only source and set white balance manually.

• Summer (June): shoot mid-morning to mid-afternoon, diffuse direct sun, avoid shooting into a bright window at midday
• Winter (December): shoot late morning only, place the dish side-on to the window, expect longer shadows
• Overcast days: use them, they give the softest, most even light of the year
• Always: turn off overhead lights and shoot with window light alone

What to shoot for each channel

Different channels need different photos, and shooting one set for everything wastes effort. For delivery apps, the customer is deciding on a small phone screen while hungry, so the dish should fill most of the frame, be shot from roughly 45 degrees above the table or straight down, and show the portion honestly. For Google Business Profile, the useful images are a mix of dishes and the room itself, because people are checking whether the place looks right for the occasion. For your own website and printed menu, consistency across the menu matters more than any single hero shot.

Decide on one background and one light direction per shoot and keep them for the whole menu. A slate tile, a plain wooden board or a neutral linen cloth all work; what fails is a different background for every dish, which makes an online menu look chaotic. Shoot each dish in at least two crops: a square for grid layouts and a wider horizontal frame for banners and headers.

For social, shoot one or two dishes in a more candid style: a hand pouring sauce, a stack of plates, a half-eaten plate that shows texture. Keep those separate from the clean menu shots so the menu stays consistent.

Delivery app specs: check the upload screen

Photo requirements on delivery platforms change, and the platforms themselves do not always publish detailed pixel specifications. This site has spec pages for Uber Eats, Deliveroo, Just Eat and Toast in Ireland, and those pages are the place to start. Where a platform does not publish pixel specs, the honest answer is to check the upload screen in your partner dashboard or ask your account manager, because that is the version of the requirement that will actually be enforced when you upload.

Regardless of the exact numbers, a few things hold across delivery apps: shoot in the largest size your phone allows, keep the dish centered with some breathing room so a square or vertical crop does not cut off the plate, and avoid text or logos burned into the image. If a platform bans AI-generated images, do not upload a generated picture. Shoot your own real dish and upload that. Save any edited or enhanced versions for channels you control, such as your own website menu, Instagram, Google Business Profile, a QR menu or printed material.

Allergens, accuracy and what a photo may not do

Under EU Regulation 1169/2011, allergen information for the 14 regulated allergens must be available for food sold without packaging, and for distance selling such as delivery apps the mandatory information must be available before the customer completes the purchase. A photo never replaces that information. No image, however clear, substitutes for the allergen statement attached to the item.

Photos also should not imply ingredients the dish does not contain. If a dish is photographed with a garnish of crushed nuts, a dairy drizzle or a bread roll on the side, a customer will reasonably read those as part of the order. Shoot the dish as it is actually served, and if you style it for the camera, either serve it that way or keep the styling out of the frame. This matters more in delivery than in the dining room, because the customer cannot ask a question before ordering.

Menus in Dublin are commonly published in English and Irish. If your printed or online menu carries dish names in both languages, make sure the photo matches the dish described in both versions, not just the English line.

A repeatable shoot day for a Dublin kitchen

Pick a quiet service window, ideally late morning, and shoot no more than eight to ten dishes in one session. Any more and plating quality drops. Prep every dish's components before you start so each plate is assembled fresh in front of the camera rather than sitting under a heat lamp.

Use a tripod or brace your phone against something solid. Window light in Dublin in winter is dim enough that a handheld phone will raise its ISO and produce grainy images. Tap to focus on the front edge of the food, not the center of the plate, and expose so the brightest part of the dish is not blown out. A small white card or a sheet of paper opposite the window will bounce light back into the shadow side of the dish.

Shoot more frames than you think you need, especially of dishes with height such as burgers or stacked desserts, and review them on a phone screen rather than a laptop, because that is where most delivery customers will see them.

• Batch by lighting setup, not by menu order
• Plate one dish at a time and shoot it within a minute or two
• Check every image at phone size before you move on
• Keep a written note of which dishes still need a reshoot

Keeping the menu fresh without a studio

Menus change with seasons and specials, and a photo set that is two years old shows it. The cheapest habit is to photograph every new dish on the day it goes on the menu, using the same window, the same background and the same angle as the rest of the set. That keeps the menu visually consistent without another full shoot.

FoodPhoto takes a real photo of your own dish and improves light, background and crop for your own channels (website menu, Instagram, QR menu and print), keeping the food as it is; on Deliveroo, follow its photo policy and upload your own real photo. It does not generate a different dish and cannot guarantee approval by any platform, so treat it as a way to get more usable frames out of the photos you already shot.