Stopholt

Ninety seconds a plate

Photographing a tasting menu during service, with no food stylist and no second plates.

Some chefs will cook a dish twice for the camera. Ninefold's would not, so we photographed the menu during a real Tuesday service, in the private dining room, as each plate came off the pass.

  • One hard light, fixed for the whole night, so we never re-lit between courses.
  • The restaurant's own tables and slate — no surfaces brought in.
  • About ninety seconds per plate before it went back to the kitchen to be served.
A whole crab beside a hollowed orange filled with diced vegetables on black rice, on a white plate on a dark wood table.
LOWTAB 02ADemo photo: Change C.C
Crab and charred orange, photographed between the pass and table six.

The menu reads as one evening because it was one evening. That consistency is very hard to fake on a styled day.