Food blogging camera etiquette and the food blogger's perfect camera

In the comments section of my Marque review, reader Ecumer asked me the following question:
I have an etiquette question about restaurant photography. Do you ask permission before shooting or is it just assumed? I have conniptions every time I pull out the humble Olympus at someone else's table and often can't even bring myself to do so at high end places.

I responded in the comments section and had some interesting subsequent replies. I decided I'd prefer to devote a separate post to the topic of food blogging camera etiquette. Here's my take (edited to include a few more thoughts):

In terms of camera etiquette, I can only speak for myself. The only place I've ever asked the staff permission to photograph was at Le Bernardin, more out of deference to the VIPs who were taking me out to lunch than anything. Permission was of course granted with a warm smile.

But otherwise, I normally just take the photos without asking. In the 2.5 years since I've been blogging I like to think I've become rather adept at taking photos quickly and discreetly: I never use flash; I don't huddle over the camera but rather hold it up to the food and look in the camera screen; I wait until the waiter/waitress has left the table (but if they return to the table I'll keep the camera out and won't hide it away guiltily); and I use a camera that's small enough to fit into my jeans pocket (a Panasonic DMC-FX38, which I always have stashed in my handbag).

In fact, I think I'd feel a little silly asking for permission to photograph - like I was making a big deal out of it on purpose, to seem important.

Out of all the places I've visited, not once have I been told off or asked to put the camera away: I think (particularly with high end restaurants) food photography is becoming so mainstream these days that it doesn't seem worth making a fuss over, provided the photographer is discreet enough to not bother other customers. If any restaurant did want to ban my little camera I'd probably suspect they knew their food wasn't up to scratch and deserved a bad review!

All that said, however, I may revise my camera policy if I do end up getting a big chunky camera. They're a lot more anti-social (for my dining companions as well as for other customers), and I imagine I'd only feel comfortable using it in circumstances where the lighting is too dim for my pocket camera, or where I'm with a bunch of food bloggers and so feel less self-conscious.

What's your take on it?

After I wrote this on the Marque post, Adski from the blog Totally Addicted to Taste subsequently commented:

Hey Claire,
Nice to hear your view on cameras in restaurants. I'm always keen to hear what equipment other people use for their blogs and how they feel about taking the actual photos.
Back in the day when i first started blogging, I didn't mind pulling the camera out so much because not many people knew about blogging or bloggers. But these days, it seems everyone in Melbourne is a food blogger of sorts. So these days, I feel a little bit more apprehensive about taking photos in a restaurant.
I use one of 3 different cameras when I'm out.
Iphone: My absolute last resort. The photos are crap and I hate posting them to my blog, but sometimes I've either just forgotten to bring another camera or went out for an impromptu meal.
Canon Digital Ixus 65: This camera is ok, but I don't love it. The main reason I'd use this is to be inconspicuous, probably at a restaurant where I'd feel slightly embarrassed taking photos. Maybe somewhere dark and formal like Ezard.
Canon 40D: This camera is my baby. If I could, I'd take every single photograph with this camera. I have 2 lenses which I love and are perfect for food photography. One is the 24-70mm, which is about $1800 new. This is one big lens and to take this out, you might as well set up a photography studio at your table. It takes amazing photos (IMO) if you check out my blog, it's quite obvious which lens took the nice looking pics. The other lens I use is the 50mm 1.8. This lens will only set you back about $100, but for it's price is an amazing lens and works pretty well in low lighting. However you usually need to up the ISO a bit. This lens is tiny, unassuming and fits in the palm of your hand. A lot less embarrassing to take out with you.

When I'm taking my pics at restaurants I ALWAYS wait until the wait staff have left and are preferably not watching me. I get a bit self conscious when taking restaurant pics. Usually my little trick is to have the camera out before I've even ordered and will flick through the photos on the camera with my dining partner and maybe even take a few snaps of each other. The reason I do that is, I like to give the wait staff the impression that I didn't get the camera out just for the purpose of taking photos of their food, more just to record the night. Do I sound paranoid? Or do other bloggers think the same way?
The only time I've ever been asked about my camera or more specifically asked NOT to take photos, was at Jacques Reymond. Apparently there are these people out there called 'bloggers' and they take terrible photos and post them on the internet. Well, that's what the waiter told me anyway. You can read more about that in my review.
If you're looking at getting your first food photography lens, I'd highly recommend the 50mm f1.8. It's cheap, has amazing DOF and works great in low light situations. Fit that onto something like a canon 400D and you have a great little reasonably inconspicuous restaurant setup.

Twitterer fennb then weighed in on the discussion:

On the topic of camera policies and food bloggers, I've been musing about "The perfect food blogger's camera".

Obviously, you could rock up with a Canon 5D mk II with a 17mm tilt-shift lens, but that's likely heading towards the point where the restaurant (or for that matter, other punters) my start caring - it would be big and somewhat loud (and inconvenient). It would also cost $6500.

So, what small, compact camera would be perfect for food?

Basically, the features you want are good macro/wide angle and excellent low light performance.

Two cameras instantly spring to mind:

1) The new Canon G11. It has less megapixels than it's older sibling, which was purposefully done to provide extended ISO (12800) low-light performance that canon has until now restricted to DSLRs.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0908/09081908canong11.asp

Samples: http://www.flickr.com/groups/1095006@N23/pool/

2) The Ricoh GR Digital 3. This camera has a fixed length lens (so no zoom) BUT is 28mm (perfect for food/restaurant interiors) and can go as fast as f/1.9 (that's fast). This should make it great for low light/closeups, which is perfect for food.

Sample: http://www.flickr.com/photos/min626/4068242050/

Both cameras can shoot RAW (afaik) which is hugely helpful for low-light situations and both cost $500-$600.

I have no personal experience with either of these, but interested in people's experiences/opinions as it might help other keen food bloggers make a decision :)

And here's Ed's take:

Fennb, I've got the GR Digital 2 which is pretty amazing especially it's macro with a tiny focal length which is ideal for close up restaurant shooting. I wish for the GR3 because of the f.1.9.

The Ricoh's also have a great build quality too.

Thanks, fellas. Very useful camera information to know, particularly as my 30th is coming up and I'd reeeeally love a sexy camera for my birthday (nudge nudge). :)

Does anyone else care to add your nomination for the food blogger's perfect camera, or your thoughts on food blogging camera etiquette in general (whether you're a food blogger, a food blog reader or working in restaurants)?

Barbagallo: inner-city Melbourne just scored another chic pizzeria

Barbagallo Trattoria e Pizzeria
103 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne (map)
9639 6222


I'm currently working on secondment well out of the city, so imagine my frustration when my friend Miss O emailed me on Thursday to let me know that I Carusi founder Pietro Barbagallo's new pizzeria on the ground floor of her building had finally opened - during my absence!! Luckily, the family wanted to go out for pizza on Cup Eve and was having trouble finding a decent pizzeria that was open, so I suggested we head into town to check it out.

It's called Barbagallo, and it occupies the Lonsdale Street building that Luke Mangan had previously leased for his Salt Grill Melbourne that never was, a couple of doors down from Seamstress. Barbagallo opened for family and friends on Thursday, and to the public on Friday. Both a trattoria and a pizzeria, it has a menu featuring antipasti, primi (pasta), pizze and an interesting-sounding brodetto di pesce - a seafood broth with tomato and shellfish.


We started with a few antipasti to share: burrata with fresh tomato and bruschetta ($14) and bresaola served the traditional way with rocket and Grana Padano (also $14). I loved them both, though the burrata needed a good pinch of sea salt.


I chose the pizza with pork and fennel salsiccia, mozzarella, tomato, onion and chilli ($18). Really nice - quality mozzarella, a substantial chilli kick and sausage flecked with fennel seeds. Dad had the pizza ai funghi: asiago cheese, enoki, shitake and king oyster mushrooms ($19). Surprising to see so many Asian mushrooms on an Italian pizza, but they tasted lovely.


Birdie ordered the pizza with tomato, mozzarella, rocket and prosciutto ($18). She felt (and we agreed) that the prosciutto had been sliced too thickly, so she ditched half of the slices. Mum and Ale (the Italian exchange student currently staying with them) each ordered the pizza with taleggio and asparagus ($18), which was sensational. Love that the asparagus spears were kept long!


The pizze were all in the $16-$21 range (Ladro prices), but we - and the bona fide Italian dining with us - felt the quality of the pizze (the dough especially) justified the prices. We were less impressed however at being charged $8.50 per skinny glass of Trumer Pils or stubbie of Peroni.


We did love the calzoncino for dessert filled with dark, milk and white Belgian chocolate ($11) though.


An unfortunate incident with the bill (their credit card machine was out of order all evening but they neglected to inform us until we tried to pay by card, and then they wouldn't process the card manually, leaving Dad with no choice but to stomp down to the 7-11 to get $250 cash out - "They should've told us it was cash only as they were seating us!" he muttered tetchily) put a slight damper on our evening, which is a shame given how much we'd enjoyed the food.


One last thing: this is not a place to bring an elderly relative who is hard of hearing, as the dimensions of the space and the hard surfaces make it noticeably noisy, even with only six tables filled (though to be fair one of those tables had four excited kids on it). "Don't you think it's loud, Ale?" we asked. She grinned "No, in Italy it would be much louder in a pizzeria - you would not be able to hear each other speak!"

dine out... help out - StreetSmart Australia

You may already have read about it on Ed's blog, but I wanted to draw your attention to the StreetSmart campaign running from 9 November - 24 December 2009. StreetSmart is a charity that supports and strengthens smaller, grassroots community organisations helping the homeless.

A bit more about the campaign, quoting from the StreetSmart Australia website:

For the six weeks in the lead-up to Christmas, StreetSmart partners with restaurants to ask diners to make a small donation to StreetSmart on their bill. Every table is asked to add $2 or more to their bill, not even the price of a coffee or mineral water. It’s a simple idea that adds up to a big impact on the lives of people who are homeless.

So when you are planning a night out think about taking a simple action and book at a StreetSmart participating restaurant. While you are there encourage your fellow diners to dig deep and leave your donation on your bill. Be it meeting up with friends, family or an office or business function we need you to get involved.

Tipping:
Please remember that your donation should not replace any tip you would usually leave, we want you to consider any donation over and above your tip and support the staff and restaurants who are supporting us.

100% of your donation goes to work:
StreetSmart operational expenses are funded through sponsorship partners allowing us to guarantee to the community that 100% of your donations are distributed directly to charity recipients.


One of the great things about the StreetSmart campaign is that it helps smaller organisations that rarely receive extra funding and often lack the resources to fundraise or access the networks for grants and funding. You can learn more about the initiatives that the funding helped since its Australian inception in 2003 here.

A full list of restaurants participating in 2009 is here.

Of the participating restaurants, these are the ones I've reviewed (with links to my reviews):
Anada, 197 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy
Birdman Eating, 238 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy
**newly participating** Cumulus Inc, 45 Flinders Lane, Melbourne
Cutler and Co, 55-57 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy
ezard, 187 Flinders Lane, Melbourne
Gingerboy, 27-29 Crossley Street, Melbourne
Ladro, 224 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy
Laksa Me, 1/16 Liverpool Street, Melbourne
Longrain, 44 Little Bourke Street, Melbourne
Paladarr Thai Issan, 7 Rowe Street, Alphington
Panama Dining Room, 3/231 Smith Street, Fitzroy
Portello Rosso, 15 Warburton Lane, Melbourne
Provenance, 288 Smith Street, Collingwood
Red Spice Road, 27 McKillop St, Melbourne
St Ali 12-18 Yarra Place, South Melbourne
St Jude's Cellars, 389-391 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy
And in Noosa:
River House, 301 Weyba Road, Noosaville
Wasabi, 2 Quamby Place, Noosa Sound

If you're planning a meal out in the next six weeks, I urge you to consider choosing one of these (or one of the other participating restaurants) and donating to the campaign. I'm planning on visiting a few of the ones I haven't been to yet (at this stage I'm most interested in checking out Libertine and The Deanery, but am open to suggestions - feel free to leave a comment nominating your favourite restaurant on the list), and will write them up on the blog.

If you work in a restaurant that would like to participate in the campaign (and don't worry, it's not too late to join), find more info here. Let me know if you join the campaign, and I'll edit this post to include your details. I'm also happy to promote the details of any other restaurants already participating in the campaign that I haven't gotten around to reviewing yet.

If you're a food blogger and would like to help promote the campaign, Ed has plenty of great ideas on his related post.

You can also donate directly to the campaign here.

To stay updated on StreetSmart news and events, follow @StreetSmartAust on Twitter or join its Facebook group.

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Oh, and speaking of Facebook: there's now a Facebook page for Melbourne Gastronome. If you're a fan, why not Become a Fan? As well as sending a notification when the blog is updated, I'll also be writing the occasional silly note on the Facebook page wall - and only on the Facebook page wall - about blog-related trivia (such as the one I wrote this week entitled "PR: how to irritate a food blogger while trying to score free advertising on their blog for the product you're flogging").

Sydney Gastronome: Marque degustation

Fantasy weekend of opulence in Sydney with best-friend-K and my dear Californian friend Sam, who finally came to visit me in Australia. Sammy's visit with me started with three fun but drizzly weekdays in Melbourne, so naturally Sydney - beautiful tart that she is - turned on some dazzlingly sunny weekend weather.


Several months ago I'd impulse-bought tickets for b-f-K and me to see Cate Blanchett and Joel Edgerton in the STC production of A Streetcar Named Desire (which we LOVED, by the way), so we'd been planning this weekend for some time.

As good luck would have it, my Sydney uncle and his wife were going away that same weekend, and they very generously offered to let us stay in their Milsons Point apartment in their absence. Their apartment is just next to Luna Park, in the rounded building with blueish windows at the right of the above photo.

The apartment has THE most spectacular view of Sydney Harbour.




Part of the planning for this weekend involved liaising with my charming Sydney friend J (aka Beatch) about choosing an appropriately fabulous Saturday night dinner venue. We decided on the degustation at Marque. In the end our reservation swelled to eight: me, Beatch and his girlfriend Z, "cousin" K and his girlfriend F, b-f-K, Sammy and last but certainly not least Naval Lieutenant Levi, Sammy's travel companion in Australia.

Everyone came over at 6:30pm for champagne on the apartment balcony. Just an ordinary Saturday afternoon drink, really (!).


Marque
355 Crown Street, Surry Hills, NSW (map)
(02) 9332 2225
website


I'd been pretty impressed reading about Ed's take on Marque, then doubly curious when Marque chef Mark Best was adjudged SMH Chef of the Year. The degustation was not cheap - $145 per head, with matching wines a further $75 per head - but was impressive enough to justify the price tag. I was slightly disappointed to see an absence of Australian wines on our menu, but not complaining about the quality of the overseas wines we did have.

The interior was sleek and sexy. Loved the softly glowing lights on each table - they looked like dinosaur eggs.


First up was the chaud-froid free range egg, a dish Mark Best credits to Alain Passard, circa 1998. It reminded me a lot of Eric Ripert's Egg that I had a few months ago at Le Bernardin, but this one was even more of a expedition through Flavour Country. I can't remember all the ingredients but they included at least cream, maple syrup, vinegar and chives as well as the egg itself and two salt-encrusted grissini... very anorexic soldiers to dip into the egg. It was sweet, salty, sour, hot and cold all at once.


The next dish was as much an expedition through Texture Country as through Flavour Country: a cone of almond jelly with morsels of blue swimmer crab buried underneath, almond gazpacho, sweet corn, a glob of avruga and popcorn dust sprinkled on top. Almond with blue swimmer crab was a flavour combination that at first sounded like all kinds of wrong to me, but DAMMIT IT WORKED. B-f-K's favourite dish. It was served with a glass of 2007 Alzinger Grüner Veltliner (Wachau, Austria) - grüner veltliner is rapidly becoming my favourite new varietal.


Next up was smoked octopus with mustard (in sorbet form), dill, watercress oil and ink, served with the 2007 Yves Cuilleron Saint-Peray 'Les Poitiers' (Rhône Valley, France). Apart from the crazy mustard sorbet, I can't say this dish did much for me.

It was followed by steamed scampi with 'fish floss', scampi anglaise custard and tiny cubes of turnip soaked in bitter bitter Campari. The nuggets of scampi were lovely and juicy and I liked the cleverly-disguised thin discs of mushroom on top. I get that the bitter turnip cubes were meant to be a contrast with the sweetness of the scampi, but the bitterness was just a bit too sharp for our tastes. This dish was accompanied by the 2007 Brookfields Gerwürztraminer (Hawkes Bay, NZ).


I'd been slightly underwhelmed by the previous two dishes but boy oh boy was I overwhelmed by the next dish. For starters, feast your eyes on the photo below:


Visually spectacular, or what?! I couldn't resist clapping my hands together with glee as it was placed before me. "It's.... gorgeous!" chirruped somebody. "It looks like Stonehenge!" chimed another. "No, it looks like the Twelve Apostles!" replied one of our international visitors. For me, it immediately made me think of the towers of San Gimignano (because I am, after all, a half-Italian pretentious tosser).

So what was it? Segments of new season white asparagus, with flavour!flavour!flavour! Victorian morels, dabs of parmesan custard and transluscent leaves of purple potato paper perched on top of some of the columns of segmented asparagus. Served with my favourite wine of the night, the intriguing 2008 Felton Road 'Vin Gris' (Central Otago, NZ). While it's made from 100% pinot noir grapes, the juice of the freshly crushed grapes is immediately bled off, so the wine is golden coloured with a very faint pink tinge.


Next up was the slow cooked pork jowl with spinach, sesame and Pacific oyster, matched with a glass of 2006 Ànima Negra Àn-2 Callet/Montenegro/Shiraz (Mallorca, Spain - I had no idea that Mallorca produced any wines of note!).

This was followed by the wagyu sirloin with black olive, Earl Grey ash, burnt cucumber, onion and green shallot purée, matched with the 2007 Conterno Fantino Barbera d'Alba (Piedmont, Italy).

Both meat dishes were fabulous, if less show-stopping-SPECTACULAR than the previous asparagus and morel dish. The elegant Barbera was my second-favourite wine of the night.


We were then given the option of an additional cheese course, which about half of us selected. It was Roquefort Papillon, served with honey jelly, crazy deep fried capers and dukkah. Served a glass of 2008 Ronco del Gelso Malvasia (Isonzo del Friuli, Italy). The menu we were given to take home at the end of the night, however, failed to mention what I thought was the most remarkable element of the cheese dish: the scoop of radicchio sorbet. LOVED it. Excuse the photo - we'd already started eating it before I remembered to pull out my camera!

The Sauternes custard, which came out unaccompanied by wine, was perfect. Simple and perfect.


The other dessert I was less sure about. Goats cheese spheres, white chocolate powder, sorrel and lemon sorbet. Maybe it's because I was getting palate fatigue, but it felt like this dish was trying too hard to hit all of our buttons at once: sharply contrasting bizzarro flavours, the molecularlicious spherification AND powder thing in the same dish, etc. It was served with a glass of chestnut marble (pages, liqueur de Châtaigne and lime marble).

Finally, after several enjoyable hours, petits fours were offered. Similar to the ones I had recently at The Point, there were salted caramel chocolates and bitter bon bons. I didn't hear the waiter's warning to handle the bon bons carefully - they were fragile with a very liquid centre - so I reached for one only to have it explode spectacularly in my hand!


So there you have it. It was challenging food, not meant to be necessarily crowd-pleasing, but pretty damn special. Oh, and it goes without saying that the service was exemplary. Bravo!

King / Bourke Quest Part 25: Espressino

Espressino Coffee and Pizza Bar
68-70 King Street (Rialto), Melbourne (map)
9620 4774

Time to resurrect the King/Bourke Quest, my search for good lunch food walking distance from my office building on the corner of King and Bourke streets.


Remo Nicolini (one of the original Italian Stallions from Carlton Espresso, he who also owns Little Bourke Street pizzeria +39) finally opened the doors of his new coffee and pizza bar on Thursday. It's at the Rialto site on the level below the New York Tavern, and it's called Espressino. I'd been pestering Remo by popping down a few times to see if it was open yet, so I had lunch there on opening day.

This Espressino is not to be confused with the cafe at the other end of town formerly known as Espressino and operated by Remo, but now run by others and known as Babbo.


Indoor and outdoor seating at Espressino. The outdoor tables are made from trees that were damaged in the Black Saturday, and carry sombre inscriptions describing the bushfires.


Inside, the panini, piadine, pizzette and dolci are all displayed in big cabinets. Remo is brewing up is his +39 artisan coffee, as well as single origin (Cuban): there are two coffee machines, one solely dedicated to making espressi.


The high ceilings of the interior are adorned with spotlit bicycles.


Housemate DJ and our friend Miss B both ventured to my end of the city to join me for lunch. Miss B had the pizzetta with eggplant and cherry tomatoes. I had the one with tartufata and rocket. Simple, tasty, good. They were about $8 each, and were served on little wooden boards that had the Espressino logo stamped in the corner. Wish the knives had been a bit sharper though.


DJ announced it would be a multiple course meal. He chased up his roasted pumpkin piadina with a slice of berry-topped cake we assumed would be cheesecakey but turned out to be rather more spongy. He liked it though, and we liked the look of the strawberry pieces and extravagant swirls of whipped cream - they made the cake look like a red-legged cheerleader holding pom-poms.


Miss B and I ordered coffees and decided to share a bombolone filled with Italian custard. DJ had never tasted Italian custard before so we gave him a bite - he was suitably impressed and overwhelmed by the sugar rush. I had my own caffeine rush for the next hour - yes my tolerance is low but those coffees were strong.


Very happy to have Espressino only a stone's throw from the office!