Paris Restaurant Photography: Menu, Delivery App and Google Photos That Work

Use Paris daylight instead of fighting it

In Paris the sun's height above the horizon is the single biggest factor in window-light food photography. Around the June solstice you get roughly 15 h 58 min of daylight and a noon sun about 65 degrees high. That means light comes down steeply: a table placed one to two meters back from a south-facing window gets strong, short shadows at midday, and the window itself becomes a hard, bright rectangle behind the plate. Around the December solstice daylight drops to about 8 h 02 min and the noon sun sits only about 18 degrees above the horizon, so light comes in almost horizontally and reaches deep into the room, but for far fewer hours.

Build two shooting schedules rather than one. In summer, shoot between 10:00 and 11:30 or after 15:00, when the sun is lower and the window light is softer. In winter, the useful window is narrow: aim for 11:00 to 14:00, and expect low, raking light that flatters textures like crusts, grill marks and glossy sauces but can leave the far side of a plate dark. A sheet of white foam board on the shadow side fixes that without a flash.

• June: shoot mid-morning or mid-afternoon; at noon the sun is about 65 degrees high and shadows are short and hard.
• December: shoot between 11:00 and 14:00; the sun is about 18 degrees high, so light rakes in low and warm.
• Place the table 1 to 2 m from the window, never touching the glass, so the light has room to soften.
• Use a white board or a clean white napkin on the shadow side to bounce light back onto the plate.

Match the shot to the channel, not the other way around

A dish photo for a printed menu, a delivery app listing and a Google Business Profile post are three different jobs. For print, you can shoot tighter and darker because the image sits next to text on paper. For delivery apps, the thumbnail is small and often viewed on a phone in poor light, so the dish needs to fill most of the frame and the background needs to be simple. For Google Business Profile, the photo is often seen alongside street views and interior shots, so a slightly wider frame that shows the plate in context works better than an extreme close-up.

Shoot each dish once, well, then crop for each channel rather than re-plating. A square 1:1 crop suits most menu thumbnails and social grids; a 16:9 crop suits website headers and some app banners. Keep the hero version at the highest resolution your camera or phone allows and crop down, never the reverse.

• Delivery app thumbnail: dish fills 70 to 80 percent of the frame, plain background, shot from about 45 degrees.
• Printed menu: slightly wider, with room for the dish name beside or below the image.
• Google Business Profile: include a little table, glass or cutlery so the photo reads as a real meal, not a stock cutout.
• Social: 1:1 for grid posts, 16:9 for website headers and stories-style crops.

Delivery apps in Paris and where to check the specs

Restaurants in Paris commonly list on Uber Eats and Deliveroo, and Just Eat also operates in France. Each app controls its own upload rules, and those rules change. This site publishes spec pages for Uber Eats France, Deliveroo France and Yelp France; use those pages as a starting point, then confirm the current requirements on the app's own upload screen before you export a full menu.

One rule matters more than any pixel count: Deliveroo does not accept AI-generated or altered images. If you list there, shoot your own real photo of the dish and upload that file directly. Do not run it through any tool that changes the food itself, and do not label anything as ready for a platform whose rules you have not checked. For your own channels, such as your website menu, Instagram, a QR menu or printed cards, you have full control over the crop and styling.

Allergens, accuracy and what a photo must not promise

Under EU Regulation 1169/2011, allergen information for 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. Keep allergen details in text on the listing, the menu and the app, and make sure the photo does not suggest ingredients the dish does not contain.

In practice this means shooting the dish as served. If the garnish changes with the season, shoot the version you actually sell that week. If a sauce contains a regulated allergen, do not style the plate in a way that hides it or implies a different recipe. A clean, honest photo of the real portion is also more useful to a diner deciding whether the dish is a light lunch or a full meal.

A simple Paris shooting routine

Pick one table near a window and keep it as your photo table. Clear the background: a chalkboard, a coat rack or a service station behind the plate will date the photo and distract from the food. Use a plain wall, a linen cloth or a dark wooden surface, and keep the same surface across the menu so the listings look consistent.

Shoot in batches by light, not by menu section. On a bright June morning, shoot the dishes that need crisp, high-contrast light, such as salads, tartes and grilled fish. On a low December afternoon, shoot the dishes that benefit from warm, raking light, such as roasts, stews and pastries. Take one overhead shot (90 degrees), one at about 45 degrees and one close detail for texture, then move on. That gives you enough material to crop for every channel without re-shooting.

• Overhead (90 degrees) for flat dishes, sharing plates and pizzas.
• About 45 degrees for burgers, bowls, plated mains and most delivery thumbnails.
• Low, near-table-level for tall items like stacked pastries or layered desserts.
• Shoot a plain version and a garnished version only if both are genuinely sold.

Getting consistent photos across a full menu

Most Paris restaurants do not need a studio; they need consistency. Same table, same surface, same time of day, same crop. If you shoot 20 dishes over two weeks, the light will change and the menu will look patchy. Block two or three sessions in the same week and shoot in the same window of light.

For the restaurant's own channels, 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; every photo comes as a kit of sizes. That is useful for your website, Instagram, Google Business Profile, QR menu and print. It cannot guarantee approval by any platform, and it is not a substitute for shooting your own real photo where a platform requires one.