Restaurants blacklist food snapshotting

Multiple restaurants have decided to take a drastic measure against people who take photos of their food. In order to keep other clients happy, some diners have banned food snapshotting in their establishments.

Several restaurants have turned against on-the-spot amateur food snapshotting, as their customers were beginning to feel harassed by the flashes.

Several restaurants have asked their customers to stop photographing the food.

The New York Times states that Chefs and restaurant owners worldwide have chosen to stop their customers’ photographical food sharing, as their actions have created discomfort for fellow diners.

One such example is Chef David Chang of Momofuku Ko restaurant, who has either banned food photography (in New York) or has introduced strict rules of conduct, blacklisting flash usage (Toronto, US or Sidney, Australia). Other restaurants that have no-flash policies are Per-Se, Le Bernadin and Fat Duck.

While owners of highly-rated restaurants complain about arrogant people who don’t understand that they distract their fellow gourmands, food photography teachers agree that the current level of food snapshotting has crossed the line.

Valery Rizzo, an iPhone food photography teacher, explains that she is tired of seeing the huge arousal of bad photographs. Badly composed images have driven her to the point of arranging a course in food iPhoneography at 3^rd Ward in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

Most amateur photographers say that they snap the images in tribute to the restaurants and chefs. Besides, sharing the pics on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram results in free advertising. In the age of social networking, this allegation makes sense.

This is the reason why Chef David Bouley found a way to reconcile both camps. He suggests the food snappers to come with him in the kitchen and shoot how their food is prepared, rather than disturb the whole restaurant.

“It’s like, here’s the sauce, here’s the plate. Snap it. We make it like an adventure for them instead of telling them no”, said mister Bouley.

Despite the benefits of free advertising, it is more important to have respect for all your clients, so it is likely that many other high-profile restaurants will jump on this bandwagon in the future.