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Food bloggers: Helpful or disruptive?
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On the left, a photograph of a scallop dish the way Craft Restaurant would like the dish presented. On the right, blogger Katie Ett's photo of Craft Restaurant's Colicchio & Son's cinnamon bread.
A side-by-side comparison. On the left, a photograph of a beet salad from Craft Restaurant the way it would like dish to be presented. On the right, a photo by food blogger Katie Ett of gnocchi from Craft Restaurant's Colicchio & Sons.
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Tess Vigeland: Lots of folks will be barbecuing in the great outdoors today. Last unofficial weekend of summer, time to use up those briquettes. But if you're going out to dinner, get ready for some flashbulbs to go with your appetizer. And your main course. And probably dessert, too. Food blogs and review sites are all the rage these days. And they've spawned some new behavior at restaurants that would probably have Emily Post rolling over in her grave.
Sally Herships has our story from New York.
Sally Herships: It's Thursday night. I'm at Fatty Cue, a trendy barbecue joint in Brooklyn. I'm here with Hagen Blount, Lawrence Weibman and Andy Freedman. Three big, hungry guys trying to decide what to get for dinner.
Blogger 1: The crab laksa, the spare ribs and the brisket.
They spend a while debating their order.
Blogger 2: I would be interested in the cucumbers.
But when the food finally comes, no one touches it. Instead of attacking their plates, they're photographing them. Which isn't easy, because it's kind of dark in here.
Bloggers: Have you been using the two-second delay? One second. One-second delay, yeah.
Hagen, Blount and Weibam are going to post the photos online, along with a review of the restaurant. That's because they're food bloggers, or -- depending on who you ask -- food paparazzi. And Weibman's not very fond of the term.
LAWRENCE WEIBAM: The idea of paparazzi definitely has a negative connotation to it -- almost like a shoo-fly. And what we're doing here is out of passion, we love food.
But whether you call them paparazzi or bloggers, they're showing up in restaurants more often, bringing cameras, and sometimes even tripods, along with their appetite. Like at Cafe Flora, a vegetarian restaurant in Seattle. Nat Stratton-Clarke is the owner. For the most part, he's very happy with the free publicity.
NAT STRATTON-CLARKE: This wonderful woman from Dallas came in last week. And she is gluten-free. And the only reason that she knew about us is because she typed in "gluten-free Seattle" and up came this picture that somebody had taken.
But sometime the quality of the photos doesn't match the quality of the food. They can be under-exposed, or taken mid-meal, bite marks and all.
Katie Grieco is VP of operations and new projects at Craft Restaurants in New York. We sat down to look at some of the pictures bloggers have posted of three-star meals from celebrity Chef Tom Colicchio.
Grieco: I think they're horrible looking, aren't they? You tell me. If I were to look at that picture, I wouldn't think that looks particularly appetizing. And that was a good review.
But Grieco isn't that concerned with the pictures themselves. Instead, she says the bigger problem is the possibility of bloggers disrupting the ambiance with flashes or tripods and disturbing diners trying to enjoy their meals in peace. The average check at Craft is about $100.
GRIECO: When people are paying a high price tag the expectations are often just as high, if not higher.
Trendy eateries like New York City's Momofuku Ko and Le Caprice have banned photography altogether. And Craft doesn't allow photographers to use a flash. But Grieco's biggest beef with bloggers is their potential lack of experience. She doesn't want amateur food writers influencing people's dining decisions.
GRIECO:When you feel like they're having that influence without really knowing what they're talking about, it's very frustrating.
Back at Fatty Cue food blogger Lawrence Weibman tell me he understands... sort of.
WEIBAM: But in the end, if a chef is making good food, he or she has nothing to worry about, because it speaks for itself.
You know that old saying, "Everyone's a critic?" Well for restaurant owners, it's truer then ever.
In New York, I'm Sally Herships for Marketplace.
Herships: How is it?
Blogger 1: Delicious. That is some pork goodness right there. I'm tellin' you.
As someone who writes a lot about restaurants, chefs, and experiences surrounding food and drink (particularly in France), I've taken plenty of bad food pictures myself and have a certain understanding for the desire of food bloggers to record a presentation. Where I'm critical of average food bloggers, however, is that they believes that their pictures, well lit or not, express anything of interest for readers. Their photos are often nothing more than a sign that they have nothing to say but rather simply want readers to know that they were there, like taking a picture of the Mona Lisa. I don't think of them as akin to culinary paparazzi but rather as food pornographers, looking to photograph everything they insert in their mouths, followed by the inevitable "mmm." See the following opinion piece on the subject written for France Revisited.
http://www.francerevisited.com/main/France/restaurants-cuisine/advice-op...
Having an influence without knowing what they're talking about? That's laughable. Every client who walks through that door, reviewer, blogger, or otherwise, will have an influence. Maybe Grieco should only allow CIA trained chefs to dine at Craft?
Fact of the matter is, food blogging and non-professional review sites drive business for lots of restaurants. Chefs & restauranteurs who embrace the dynamic are much beloved and more often written about. I think (naturally, a food blogger) it's a good thing the collective conscious is more interested in their/our  food than ever. People care about sourcing, provenance, dietary balance, chefs' background, and so on. When spending plenty of money on dining in this type of an economy why not really enjoy the experience?
I'm a chef, restaurant owner, and blogger. First, most food bloggers have learned, very quickly, not to use flash. And really, how many food bloggers taking pictures in one's restaurant are there on any given evening normally? Zero? One? It's far more distracting to have a group of people posing for pictures for Aunt Sally's birthday party, snapping photos, moving chairs around, asking the waiter to take the photos - come to think of it, tourists do that all the time, which ties up the waiter's time that he/she could be putting to use taking care of customers - oh wait, that's exactly what he or she is doing. Or how about when a restaurant is getting reviewed by a publication and let's a pro photographer wander around the dining room snapping shots of people dining.
Okay, maybe many of the photos that come out on blogs aren't top of the line quality. So what. It's publicity - and it's fascinating that restaurateurs have only started getting upset about it when bloggers started criticizing their experiences - no one ever objects to the good writeups. Come to think of it, articles like this that are popping up all over the place are likely inspired by restaurant owners just looking for more publicity. After all, that's part of their job.
I have been a food blogger for about a year. I agree with Amy P -- I love taking pictures of food to not only blog about it, but I consider them "souvenirs" of the overall experience. However I do have to say that I dine frequently with bloggers and not one of us uses a flash nor a tripod at dinner. And Ms. Grieco’s fears about “amateur food writers influencing people’s dining decisions?†Please! Food bloggers may not be professional writers, but many of us are experienced home cooks, are extremely passionate about food, and actually do know more about food than what you’d expect, though we make no claims about having a “professional opinionâ€. Me, I’ve staged (interned) in a popular French restaurant where I worked alongside sous chefs in prepping and plating of food.
As for my photos – I use a basic digital point and shoot, and I’ve become quite experienced in using it and my photos come out as good as they can with the equipment that I use. Ms. Grieco’s concerns about amateurish photos is justifiable, but she has to remember --- a lot of bloggers have invested in high tech gadgetry to produce professional results but at the end of the day, we aren’t paid to do this. We do this because we’re passionate about what we do. And just because the photos are amateurish doesn’t mean that a positive write up on a blog doesn’t mean good PR. To think that she’s is being picky about the nature of where “good PR†is coming from to me, is a little disconcerting.
While I agree that flashbulbs and tripods would be distractions for other diners, I've read enough about food photography and how food stylists get the food to look that way, that I wouldn't put much faith in the picture to tell the whole story, regardless of how appetizing or not it makes the food look. I don't actually recall the last time that I chose a dish based on a photo. Maybe never. But food blogs serve another purpose too: to document the writer's experience with the food. And for people who love food, having that photo "souvenir" may be a valuable part of that experience. It's saying "this meal was so memorable, I want to be able to tell others about it" long after they leave the restaurant. Besides, most people who are going to eat at a high end restaurant will most likely be able to tell the difference between a good photo and bad photo. Just a hunch.
I have been a chef and food photographer for 35 years . CIA grad with honors 1973. I think that if the food served doesn't look like the picture on the menu or on the wall the chef is failing and the management is letting it happen. Nothing bugs me more than a beautiful picture of a scrumptious dish leading to being served a much smaller, cheaper, ungarnished or poorly made meal that does not look like the promised photo. Food blogging was bound to happen sooner or later and I think it will keep the chefs,owners, and managers on their feet. I have been thinking about doing this very thing to some fast food eateries that show big sandwiches and burgers on the wall and deliver little half filled sandwiches to the costomer. As to the quality of the photo, thats a hard one. Most people just don't know how to photograph food, and as a chef I would be worried about them putting those poorley composed and improperly colored photos on the internet. My answer would be to open up a blog spot on your own place and take REAL shots of the food as it hits the table, include customer comments and give customers deals for putting up with the photo session and interview process. It might even bring in more business if the blog looks appealing and the customers are happy and the food looks the way it should.
I blog about food at "nourish the beast" - and I don't think you can have it both ways - I try to be respectful of the other diners and not impact negatively on the overall experience with flash (and I would never whip out a tripod - that's silly). However the handheld low or no flash route does compromise photo quality. I'm a writer - and not in it to win awards for my photos, but I do think potential patrons appreciate seeing the difference between the highly styled and photoshopped PR pics and the actual presentation of the food (and description of the experience) at the restaurant.
Unfortunately most people are not professional photographers yet many in today’s world all tend to think that everyone wants to see their less than professional photographic images that they produced with simple snapshots as if this is an Online Rite of Passage. It would improve our world and especially our visual online world if people with cameras would take a little time to experiment, read the manual and realize that they can produce award winning photography with some practice. Feel free to Google my name or see Mark Seibold dot com. It also helps to develop an interest in art as this can improve your photography to award winning heights. You can always eat later after your photography and art work is done first.
-Mark Seibold, retired IT Tech, Artist-Astronomy Educator, Portland Oregon
