London Menu Photography: One Shoot, Every Menu

Plan the shoot around London's daylight

London's daylight swings hard across the year. Around the June solstice you get roughly 16 h 24 min of light and the noon sun sits about 62 degrees above the horizon; around the December solstice it drops to about 7 h 36 min with the noon sun only about 15 degrees high. That difference decides when window light is usable.

In summer, high sun means light falls steeply through a window and lands close to the glass. Shoot mid-morning or late afternoon when the sun is lower and reaches further into the room, and use a table about 1 to 1.5 m back from the window so the light is soft rather than a hard stripe. In winter, the low sun rakes almost horizontally through the window for much of the short day, so a table 1.5 to 2 m back gets even light, but the usable window is narrow: book the shoot between about 10:00 and 14:00 and have every dish prepped before you start.

Avoid direct sun on the plate. A sheer curtain or a sheet of diffuser material taped to the frame turns a hard highlight on a glossy sauce into an even wash. Keep the camera at roughly 45 degrees for most dishes and drop to a 90-degree overhead only for flat items like a full English or a pizza.

• June: shoot 09:00 to 11:00 or 16:00 to 18:00, table 1 to 1.5 m from the window
• December: shoot 10:00 to 14:00, table 1.5 to 2 m back, prep everything in advance
• Overcast days are the easiest: soft, even light all day, no schedule needed

Batch shooting a full menu consistently

Consistency matters more than any single hero shot. A menu where one dish is shot on a dark wood board in warm light and the next on a white plate under a fluorescent tube looks unfinished. Fix the variables before the first plate: one backdrop, one surface, one camera height, one focal length.

Work in groups by dish type rather than menu order. Shoot all the burgers together, then all the salads, then all the desserts. Each group needs the same garnish level and the same plate, so the styling decisions are made once. Keep a printed shot list taped to the wall and tick items off; a 40-item menu shot in one session will lose track otherwise.

Shoot each dish in two framings: a tight 1:1 square for app tiles and thumbnails, and a wider 16:9 or 4:5 for the website hero and Instagram. Move the plate, not the camera, between the two. Shoot slightly wider than you need so you have room to crop later, and check every frame at thumbnail size on the camera screen before moving on, because a dish that reads well full-screen can vanish at 150 px.

• One backdrop, one surface, one camera height for the whole menu
• Group by dish type, not by menu section
• Two framings per dish: 1:1 for tiles, 16:9 or 4:5 for web and social
• Check each frame at thumbnail size before the plate leaves the table

Naming files so the menu stays in sync

A shoot produces hundreds of files and the menu changes weekly. Without a naming convention you cannot tell which photo belongs to which dish, and old photos linger in delivery listings after a dish is renamed or repriced.

Name files with the dish, the version and the date, for example `sunday-roast_v3_2025-03-14.jpg`. Keep a simple spreadsheet that maps dish name, menu section, platform and file name. When a dish changes, the version number goes up and the old file moves to an archive folder rather than being deleted, so you can compare.

Update every surface from that one list: printed menu, QR menu, website, delivery apps. When a dish is removed, remove its photo from each place in the same session. Allergen information for the 14 regulated allergens must be available for food sold without packaging, including food ordered online, so keep the text fields next to each photo current at the same time. In England, businesses with 250 or more employees must also show calories on menus, including online menus and delivery app listings, under the Calorie Labelling (Out of Home Sector) (England) Regulations 2021. That means the photo and the numbers change together.

If your printed menu is in English, keep the file names and the menu text in English too, so anyone updating a listing can match them.

Where each photo goes

The same dish needs different crops for different surfaces. A printed menu needs a clean image that survives being printed at small size on uncoated stock; a QR menu needs a file that loads fast on a phone; delivery apps need a square tile that reads at thumbnail size.

For platform specs, this site publishes dedicated spec pages for Uber Eats, Deliveroo, Just Eat and Square Online, in both UK and United Kingdom versions. Check those before you export, and confirm against the upload screen in your merchant dashboard, since platforms change requirements without notice.

One rule matters above all for Deliveroo: it does not accept AI-generated or altered images. Shoot and upload your own real photograph there. Do not describe any file as ready for a platform you have not checked against that platform's own upload screen.

Keeping the shoot repeatable

Menus change seasonally, and a good system lets you add a dish in twenty minutes rather than booking a new shoot. Keep the backdrop, the table position and a note of the camera settings in a folder with the shot list. When a new dish arrives, shoot it in the same spot at the same time of day, and it will match the rest.

For the restaurant's own channels, a tool like FoodPhoto can help: it takes a real photo of your own dish and improves light, background and crop for menus, delivery apps and social, keeping the food as it is, and each photo comes as a kit of sizes. Use it for your website, Instagram, Google Business Profile, QR menu and print, and always upload your own real photo to Deliveroo.