Hong Kong restaurants adapt to Instagram food porn craze

In less than two years, Four Seasons Hong Kong hotel pastry chef Nicolas Lambert has picked up 56,000 followers on Instagram. His cakes and pastries look so pretty and intricate it’s no wonder people all over the world are drooling over them. He admits he had not previously paid much attention to social media.

“Our social media manager told me that Hongkongers love to share food pictures, so we started the account,” Lambert, 29, recalls. “At first I posted a picture every 10 days, and then once a week. After six months, it was once every three days, and now it’s every two days.”

Food for thought: how Instagram is changing the restaurant business

The five-star hotel – along with any tuned-in restaurant around Hong Kong – is well aware of the marketing power of social media, and in particular, the huge popularity of the so-called food porn craze on Instagram. It may, or may not, make or break a restaurant, but customers’ photos of delectable dishes, with relevant hashtags, can be a viral source of free marketing.

Lambert is as particular in taking photos as he is in creating mouth-watering desserts. He doesn’t use filters because guests want their meals to look exactly the same as those on his Instagram account, he says.

He is constantly thinking ahead, spending about 30 minutes every day taking pictures of his culinary creations, or making videos of himself decorating a dessert.