Can you tell when food photos are AI-generated? Hospitality operators use AI more than you might think, but experts say it can be risky.
Once you learn to recognise the telltale signs of AI slop, you’ll notice the cost-cutting measure is used to market hundreds of restaurants and cafes across Australia.
Zoom in on a bakery’s online menu, and you’ll see those buttery layers of pastry are made up of tiny geometric lines; look closer at the sign in the restaurant window to notice how the texture of the beef noodle soup is uncannily smooth; and when scrolling through Instagram, ask yourself: Did Prince Harry and Meghan Markle actually visit that cafe in regional Victoria?
“You don’t want [food] to be perfect and shiny, but so much AI-generated content is focused on just removing every single flaw, every element of texture,” says Sophie McComas-Williams, founder and director of Sydney-based hospitality marketing agency Buffet Digital.
“You want to be able to almost smell food through the content that you’re creating.”
Over the past two months, Good Food has encountered more than 100 examples of hospitality venues using AI to generate menus, websites and social media posts. It spans the dining sector, from big budget operations such as two-hatted Barangaroo restaurant a’Mare and Toorak fine diner Yakikami, to casual joints including Papi’s Birria in Sydney.
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The growing trend coincides with a nationwide uptick in AI users. Research firm Telsyte published this month that Australia’s AI user base has grown by 6 million people since June 2025, with 14.3 million Australians using AI at least once a month.
“We were instantly intrigued by its potential,” says Sydney restaurateur Nathan Sasi, who co-owns Sydney restaurants Vin-Cenzo’s (Darlinghurst) and Bar Copains (Surry Hills) with business partner Morgan McGlone.
Like many hospitality operators, Sasi considers AI to be an efficient, cost-cutting marketing tool. With only two months to transform Darlinghurst restaurant Bar Vincent into Vin-Cenzo’s, Sasi and McGlone turned to AI to generate a logo (a cartoon man carrying a comically large bottle of wine) and its cocktail packaging (a cartoon “Cousin Vinny”).
Sasi says it saved him up to $10,000 and several weeks of branding consultations. At Papi’s Birria, owner-chef Lawrence Diaz used ChatGPT as an interim measure while a professional designer worked on menus and signage. If he had stuck with AI, he says he would have saved up to $3000.
“[For] someone starting off, that’s big money,” Diaz says. “[But] it doesn’t compare to the quality of a good graphic designer.”
At the Wagyu Ya Group in Melbourne, brand marketing manager Joy Lomasney estimates that every AI-generated promotional Instagram post saves the company about $200. She occasionally uses it to showcase specials at venues including Yamamoto Udon in Melbourne’s CBD and Yakikami.
Lomasney says she likes AI for the “convenience of being able to control in-house photography and messaging, with little English required”.
‘AI is so accessible, but not everyone has taste, and AI can’t create taste and authenticity.’
Salina Tam, owner of Ina’s Bagels
But AI-generated marketing can be a double-edged sword, says Dr TaeWoo Kim, a marketing lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney.
“It’s a good opportunity for [restaurants] because they can create advertisements close to a professional level,” he says. “[But] it can also have a negative impact on the brand image.”
Kim says AI marketing should be used carefully, as consumers can perceive it as inauthentic or low effort. In that case, he says, it would be better not to have any advertising at all.
More than 70 per cent of Australians are concerned about AI-generated advertising content and its potential to mislead consumers, according to a report published by independent market research firm Roy Morgan in May.
Their concern isn’t entirely unfounded. When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle visited Australia in April, several Victorian cafes came under fire for AI-generating a royal visit, including Beachside Bakehouse in San Remo.
“The post was intended as a bit of lighthearted fun for our community,” they said in a statement to news.com.
In rare cases, it can be disastrous. In May, Sydney cafe Stoneground Bakery posted an AI-generated image of convicted sex offender Jeffery Epstein pouring sauce over a breakfast dish at their Hunters Hill cafe. The post has since been removed, and Stoneground issued a public apology in a statement to Pedestrian.TV.
“[The post] was in bad taste and insensitive,” it read.
“We have had clients who’ve gone off and created AI-generated campaigns, and they’ve had huge backlash from their audience,” says McComas-Williams of Buffet Digital. “They came back and realised, OK, we need to create human-first content to combat the backlash.”
Salina Tam, owner of Ina’s Bagels, walked back her AI use after posting an AI-generated image of latin pop singer Bad Bunny dining at her Marrickville cafe, causing confusion among her customers.
“I thought everyone would be able to tell it wasn’t real, but I realised I actually made it a little too realistic,” Tam says. “Some people were offended.”
Tam, who has a background in marketing, has found more success documenting her daily life operating the cafe on Instagram, and leaning into her brand’s unostentatious, hand-drawn aesthetic.
Some venues are trying to strike a balance. Former Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide Cafe of the Year Happyfield (Haberfield) has experimented with posting a handful of AI-generated images and videos to its Instagram.
“It’s hard to imagine a world where Happyfield is posting 100 per cent AI videos,” says co-owner Chris Theodosi. “But I’m open to mixing in the odd AI video here and there, if it makes sense to the story and message we’re trying to portray.”
Happyfield’s AI-generated video (one created as an experiment by an external contributor) attracted significantly fewer views on Instagram than those produced by a professional videographer, but he believes the technology will catch up.
“If you had two options of what to learn in 2026, and one option was how to film and edit videos, and the other was how to make videos with AI, I believe right now, you’d be better off learning how to use AI,” he says.
For now, Melbourne cafe owner Steven Chrun is sticking to human creators. He pays a social media agency an average of $300 per video to promote his Cheltenham cafe Sana Coffee. Their behind-the-scenes footage has generated up to 3.5 million views on Instagram.
“Let’s say I got 100,000 views on one video. I would be happy if even 1 per cent came through, that would be 1000 people,” he says.
“In 2017 it was about food porn,” says McComas-Williams. “Now it’s about the access and what you can see that you don’t usually get to see as a customer.”
At Ina’s Bagels, Tam has come to value “raw and real” branding over the AI-generated content she previously used. Her Instagram profile picture is now a wonky pen drawing of a bagel.
“AI is so accessible, but not everyone has taste, and AI can’t create taste and authenticity,” she says.
Dr Kim says AI will eventually reach a point where the average quality is on par with what humans can produce. “And then the question will be: what happens to human creativity and authenticity?”
Isabel Cant – Isabel is a social media editor for Good Food. Prior to joining Good Food, Isabel worked as a freelance journalist. She was also previously a social media producer for Endemol Shine Australia, working on MasterChef Australia and Dessert Masters.From our partners
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
