In the 2010s many of our public spaces started to be molded, physically and literally, by the market advantage of luring patrons looking for highly Instagrammable shots. Businesses that once paid large sums of money to have photographs taken for advertisements that cost even more to run now had access to an army of free labor, taking pictures for... See more

One more issue we have with restaurant TikTok is that it's created a demand for both presentation and menu items to be extra-showy. Food and beverage consultant Alex Delany tells Grub Street that restaurants such as NYC's Bad Roman actively try to promote a "viral dish," with the one at the time of writing being steak topped with a single... See more

Demanding that they then add in some type of show-stopping visual element on top of that, strictly so each menu item will "perform," just doesn't sit well. Some of the most amazing dishes ever, like Chez Panisse's goat cheese salad or Cafe du Monde's beignets, might not have had a chance to shine if TikTok was around at the time of creation to... See more