Menu Photography in New York City: Shooting the Whole Menu

Plan the shoot around the whole menu, not the hero dishes

Start by exporting your current menu from the POS or the spreadsheet the kitchen actually uses, then mark every item that will appear on a printed menu, a QR menu or a delivery listing. In New York, the same dish may appear in three places with three different names, so give each item one canonical name before you shoot and use it in the file name and the caption.

Group items by how they are plated and how long they hold. Cold items such as salads, ceviche or a bagel sandwich with cream cheese photograph fast but wilt; hot items such as pizza slices, ramen or a deli sandwich need to be shot within a minute or two of plating. Build a shot list in that order so you are not waiting on the kitchen between setups.

If your restaurant is part of a chain with 20 or more locations, US rules require calorie counts for standard menu items, and FDA guidance covers online menus as well as menu boards. A photo has to match the item the calories describe, so shoot the exact portion that was measured, not a styled version with extra fries or a larger pour.

• One canonical name per dish, used in the menu, the file name and the listing
• Shoot cold items first, then hot items in small batches straight from the pass
• Photograph the measured portion for any item that carries a calorie count

A seasonal window-light schedule for New York

Around the June solstice New York City gets about 14 h 55 min of daylight and the noon sun reaches about 73 degrees above the horizon. That high sun means a north-facing window gives soft, even light for most of the day, while a south or west window throws hard patches by late morning. Around the December solstice the city gets about 9 h 05 min and the noon sun reaches about 26 degrees, so the light comes in low and far across the room, and the usable window is much shorter.

In summer, shoot between roughly 9 and 11 a.m. or after 4 p.m. at a north-facing window, and use a sheet of diffusion or a frosted shower curtain taped to the frame if the sun is direct. In winter, the low sun reaches deep into the dining room, so a south or west window can work from late morning to early afternoon, but you will need a reflector (a white foam board works) on the shadow side to fill in.

Spring and fall sit between those extremes, which makes them the easiest months for a full-menu batch: the light is workable for longer stretches and you are less dependent on diffusion. Whatever the season, turn off overhead tungsten and fluorescent lights during the shot so you are not mixing color temperatures, and set white balance manually on a gray card.

• June: north window, 9 to 11 a.m. or after 4 p.m., diffusion on direct sun
• December: south or west window, late morning to early afternoon, white board as fill
• Spring and fall: the longest usable window for a full-menu batch
• Turn off room lights and set white balance on a gray card

Batch shooting a full menu in one or two sessions

A full menu of 40 to 60 items is realistic in two sessions if you keep the camera in one place. Set a tripod or a stable stack of books at the same height for every dish, mark the spot on the table with tape, and keep the same distance so the plates fill a consistent share of the frame. A 45-degree angle suits sandwiches, pizza slices and plated entrees; a straight overhead shot at 90 degrees works for flat items such as a bagel board, a spread of dips or a composed salad.

Shoot each dish in three frames: a tight version for a delivery tile, a slightly wider version for a printed menu, and a horizontal frame for a website banner or social post. That gives you a 1:1 crop for square tiles and a 16:9 crop for banners without re-shooting. Check the back of the camera after the first three dishes and adjust exposure once, then leave it alone for the rest of the batch.

Keep a simple log as you go: dish name, session date, photographer, and whether the recipe or portion changed. That log is what makes it possible to know, months later, which photos are still accurate.

• Tape-mark the table and keep camera height and distance fixed
• 45-degree angle for plated dishes, 90-degree overhead for flat items
• Three frames per dish: tight, wider, horizontal
• Log dish name, date, photographer and any recipe change

Naming files so photos stay in sync with menu changes

Use a consistent file name that starts with the menu section, then the canonical dish name, then a date in year-month-day order, for example `pizza_margherita-slice_2025-03-14_01.jpg`. Lowercase, hyphens instead of spaces, and no accents or special characters means the file will survive upload to any system without renaming.

Keep one master folder per menu version and a `current` folder that holds only the photos currently in use. When a dish changes, move the old file to an `archive` folder rather than deleting it, and add the new date to the new file. That way a delivery listing, a QR menu and a printed menu can all be checked against the same `current` folder.

When a dish is removed from the menu, remove its photo from every listing the same week. A stale photo of a dish you no longer serve is one of the most common causes of order complaints, and it is easy to miss when photos live in three different apps.

Matching photos to printed menus, QR menus and delivery apps

Printed menus and QR menus are yours to control, so use the wider frame there and keep the crop consistent across the page. For delivery apps, check the upload screen for the current image requirements: this site publishes spec pages for Uber Eats, DoorDash, Grubhub and BentoBox in the United States, and those pages are the place to start before you export. Where a platform does not publish pixel specs, check the upload screen itself rather than relying on a third-party number.

Menus in the United States are commonly written in English and Spanish, so if you produce a Spanish-language QR menu, keep the dish names in the file names identical to the English version and add a language suffix such as `_es` so the two sets never get mixed up.

For your own channels, the same real photo can be reused at different sizes. 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. It cannot guarantee approval by any platform, so always confirm requirements on the platform's own upload screen.

• Check this site's Uber Eats, DoorDash, Grubhub and BentoBox spec pages for the United States
• If a platform does not publish pixel specs, read the upload screen
• Keep the same crop across a printed menu page
• Add a language suffix to translated menu photos