What videos should a restaurant make to get more bookings?

The core video kit for a restaurant

Most restaurants overthink the list. Three pieces from one shoot cover almost everything you need.

• A promo film (60 to 90 seconds): the room, the atmosphere, a few signature dishes and a line or two from the owner or head chef, for your homepage and Google profile
• Dish and drink reels: short, vertical clips, one dish or cocktail per clip, built for Instagram and TikTok
• A chef or kitchen segment: thirty to sixty seconds of a dish being made, which consistently gets the most watch time of anything a restaurant posts

What actually makes food look good on camera

None of this needs jargon. Four things make the difference between food that looks appetising and food that looks flat.

• Light: natural window light or a soft warm light works better than the restaurant's ambient lighting alone, so I often bring one small light for close-ups
• Steam: a dish filmed the moment it leaves the pass, while it's still steaming, reads far better than the same dish five minutes later
• Hands: a hand plating, pouring or garnishing gives a shot movement and a sense of process, rather than a static plate on a table
• Sound: the sizzle, the pour, the crunch, a mic close enough to catch these adds far more than most people expect

Where each video actually belongs

Spreading the same footage across the right places gets more use out of one shoot than any single perfect post would.

• Google Business Profile: the promo film or a short highlight, since it shows in search and Maps results right where someone is deciding where to eat
• Website homepage: the full promo film, ideally within the first screen someone sees
• Instagram and TikTok: dish and drink reels, posted individually over weeks rather than all at once
• Booking platforms: wherever the platform allows a video or cover image, use a still or short clip from the shoot instead of a generic photo

A shot list that fills the day without wasting time

Going in with a list, rather than filming whatever looks good in the moment, is what actually makes one visit produce months of content.

• The room, empty and set: two or three wide shots before anyone arrives, useful for the promo film and for the website background
• Three to five signature dishes: each plated fresh and filmed the moment it's ready, one dish at a time rather than several on the table together
• One or two drinks: a pour or a garnish being added, even in a restaurant that isn't cocktail-led
• The chef or kitchen segment: thirty to sixty seconds of one dish being made from start to finish
• A few seconds of the owner or head chef talking: even one sentence about what makes the place theirs, useful for the promo film's ending

Filming around service, not against it

The quietest window, usually mid-morning before lunch service or mid-afternoon before dinner prep, works best for most restaurants. It gives the kitchen room to plate dishes specifically for camera without the pressure of live orders, and it means no customers end up in shots without agreeing to it. A half-day covers the promo film, a full set of dish and drink reels and the kitchen segment, which for a restaurant is my promo film package, from €790, done in one visit rather than several.

Making one shoot last for months

The mistake most restaurants make is treating a shoot as a one-off. Filmed with reuse in mind, one day's footage becomes a running plan: a new dish or drink reel every week or two, a seasonal menu update when it changes, and short teasers for events like a wine tasting or a live music night. For AREPA&Co, a Venezuelan restaurant, I filmed the official promo film, a social cut for Instagram, two cocktail films (Pineapple Santa Teresa and Watermelon Mojito), a Pork Arepa cooking video and a kitchen timelapse, all from a small number of visits. Their team put it simply afterwards: “The pacing was spot on. The story was built intentionally.”

For more on getting a menu's worth of clips from one evening, bar and cocktail video marketing covers the drinks side in more detail, and if you're a smaller café or bakery rather than a full kitchen, café and bakery video ideas is closer to your setup.