by FFE EU News Staff

Chefs say taking photographs of food in their restaurants is ‘poor etiquette.’

Photojournalists and shutterbugs who fall in love with food can’t help but take a photo of them in the most provocative manner to be posted in social media. The widespread practice has been dubbed food porn or foodstagramming (portmanteau of food and Instagram).

While hailed by some restaurants as free marketing, two chefs from renowned French restaurants are finally saying enough is enough and are taking matters into their hands.

Chef Gilles Goujon of L’Auberge du vieux puits, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Fontjoncouse, southern France, said foodstagramming is poor etiquette. But more than that, it ‘takes away the surprise, and a little bit of my intellectual property.’

Meanwhile, chef Alexandre Gauthier of Grenouillere in La Madelaine-sous-Montreuil, northern France has placed a ‘no cameras’ warning on his restaurant’s menu. He added that, in the past, customers took photos of the people they were dining with and lamented the fact that people are now liking and commenting on photos where ‘the dish is cold.’

Chefs in America had been showing their discomfort over food porn shutterbugs since last year as revealed by American daily The New York Times. They and many other diners decried how photographers and their antics ruin the ambience of restaurants.