Photos and videos

Why photos change what people order

A paper menu is a list of names and prices. The guest has to build the picture in their own head — and for anything they have not eaten before, that picture is vague, or wrong, or simply never forms. So they order the thing they already recognise.

A photo removes that work. The guest sees the portion, the colour, how it is plated, whether it looks like a lot of food. They stop guessing and start wanting. People order what they can picture.

This is worth being deliberate about, because most venues carry a habit over from print without noticing. On paper, photos were expensive, printed small, reproduced badly, and went stale the moment you changed a dish — so the instinct became "maybe one small photo, if any". That instinct is a printing constraint. It has nothing to do with menus. On a phone screen every dish can have a large, sharp photo, and changing one costs nothing.

A few things follow from that:

• Your unusual dishes need photos most. Regional dishes, house names, anything a guest cannot decode from the name is being skipped right now — not because people do not want it, but because ordering it feels like a risk. A photo removes the risk.
• A photo sells every single service. A waiter recommending the special persuades one table, once. The photo does it for every guest, every day, without being asked and without being on shift.
• Video is stronger again where a dish has motion or texture — cheese pulling, a sauce being poured, something coming off the grill, cutting into something with a soft centre. A still photo cannot show that, and it is exactly what makes people want the dish.

Where to start

You will not photograph the whole menu in one afternoon, so order the work:

1. Your highest-margin dishes. Shifting demand towards these is worth real money.
2. Anything with a name guests cannot picture.
3. Your specials and featured items — a featured dish with no photo is a wasted slot. See Sections and products.

Product gallery

Open a product and use the Gallery section. Add uploads a new photo or video, Replace swaps one out.

Uploading happens in two stages, and the screen tells you which one you are in:

• Uploading… — "Please do not close or leave this page." The file is still being sent from your phone.
• Processing… — "This runs in the background. You can leave this page." Azcarte is resizing and optimising it. You are free to carry on working.

Cover image

The first image is what guests see in the menu list. To promote a different one, tap Set as cover on it — the current cover is marked Cover.

Choose the cover deliberately: it is the one doing the selling in the list, where guests are scrolling and deciding. Save the detail shots and the plating close-ups for the rest of the gallery.

The rest of the gallery is not hidden: in the list, the cover carries small badges with the number of photos (when there is more than one) and the number of videos. A video badge is a reason to tap, so a short clip on a signature dish pays off twice.

Limits

How many photos and videos you can attach to one product depends on your plan:

When you reach the cap you will see Media limit reached for your plan. On a plan with no video allowance the video option reads Videos not available on your plan.

Location cover photo

Separately from the per-dish gallery, each location has one Cover photo — the hero image at the top of your public menu.

Set it in Location settings → Cover photo → Upload cover photo (or Replace cover photo if there is one already).

This one is about the room, not the food: it sets the expectation for the whole menu before a guest reads a single dish.

Taking the photo

You do not need a photographer. You need daylight and thirty seconds.

• Shoot near a window, in daylight. This is 80% of it. Never use the phone flash — it flattens the food and turns sauces into mirrors.
• Turn the overhead lights off if they are yellow. Mixed lighting makes food look grey.
• Fill the frame. Guests are looking at a small screen. A dish photographed from across the table reads as nothing.
• Shoot from slightly above, at about 45° for most plated dishes; straight down for flat things like pizza and bowls.
• Wipe the plate rim and pull stray crumbs before shooting. It takes two seconds and is the difference between "appetising" and "canteen".
• Keep one angle and one background across the menu. Consistency is what makes an ordinary menu look designed.
• Photograph the real portion. A photo bigger than what arrives is worse than no photo — it turns a good dish into a disappointment.