Prompt the appetite cues
What makes food photography appetizing is specific and nameable: rising steam (signals fresh and hot), glistening surfaces (fat and moisture read as flavor), visible texture (a torn crumb, flaky layers), and a fresh garnish for color contrast. Put these words in your prompt — "steam rising, glistening glaze, torn open to show the crumb" — and the MACRO DETAIL preset pushes texture even further. Generic prompts like "delicious pasta" produce catalog blandness; appetite cues produce hunger.
Two angles and one light rule
Plated dishes with height — burgers, stacked desserts, noodle bowls — want a 45-degree angle, the natural view of a seated diner. Spreads, pizzas, and flat-lay table scenes want top-down. Choose per dish, and specify it in the prompt.
The light rule: warm reads appetizing, cool reads clinical. Golden, late-afternoon warmth flatters nearly every cuisine, which is why food ads live there. Keep one consistent light temperature and surface style across your whole menu's imagery so the set looks like one restaurant, not twelve stock libraries.
Beyond the menu: the promo calendar
Restaurants run on occasions — seasonal menus, holiday bookings, happy hours, event nights. Batch-generate a month of promo visuals in one sitting: ambience shots of warm interiors, seasonal-special heroes, story-format graphics for weekly offers. An EMBER STORM or MIDNIGHT RAIN video clip makes a strikingly cinematic reel for a winter-menu launch — the kind of content followers share, which is free reach.