Are social media’s food hits as good as they look? Our restaurant critic rates some of 2015’s most popular dishes
In the world of Instagram everything is delicious. Every heap of chickpeas is glossy and swoonworthy. Every slab of long-smoked pig is a hymn to umami and crunch. You want to be eating this now, it says. And this. And this. Which is the whole point of the photo-sharing app. When people post photographs on Instagram of what they’re eating – or, to be more exact, about to eat, for once the fork goes in all composition is lost – they are inviting you to admire their life. It’s called social media for a reason.
I have no problem with this. True, I very rarely photograph my dinner but that’s only because, as restaurant critic for the Observer, I have someone to photograph my dinner for me (a professional, who returns to the restaurant after I’ve been, to get images of the dishes I’m writing about). It would be churlish in the extreme if I sneered at those who want to capture images of the fun they’re about to have. As long as they’re not disturbing other diners by using flash, or standing on a chair to get the right angle, or rigging scaffolding over the table for a rostrum shot, where’s the harm?
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