28 February,2016 07:56 AM IST | | Benita Fernando
A much raved about new app intends to Kardashian-ise your food shots with a dash of glamour. We asked Mumbai chefs and foodstagrammers if they are Foodie followers yet
Chef-restaurateur Nachiket Shetye tried Foodie, and here are the before and after results. Foodie makes dishes go pop
It has been touted as the touch of magic your foodgrams needed to hit never-seen-before levels of oomph on social media. A camera app, called Foodie Delicious Camera, hit the iOS and Android markets last week, and has gathered excitement globally, right from the casual diner to the compulsive foodstagrammer. The app comes with food-specific filters and angles, meant to turn your smartphone shot into a magazine cover shoot. At least, that's what's on Foodie's menu. Is it as good as its claim? We checked with the town's virtual culinary community to see if they have given into Foodie yet, or if Instagram remains food-porn ruler.
Chef-restaurateur Nachiket Shetye tried Foodie, and here are the before and after results. Foodie makes dishes go pop
Chef Manu Chandra of Monkey Bar thinks Foodie is "a nifty app" that gives your food-shots a "dreamy" edge. "The conventional food Instagram shot does not come out well in mood lighting. The chef might send a good-looking plate out of the kitchen, but, without good lighting, it will end up looking drab. But Foodie fills the gap."
Pooja Dhingra, founder of Le 15 Patisseire, has been fiddling with Foodie's filters that cater to specific categories like sushi, meats and cakes. Spending a morning shooting her cup of coffee, brownies and cupcakes, she reports with this verdict, "I tried the Sweets filter on a cupcake, and it was all right. But, I used the BBQ filter on brownies, and I loved it." Dhingra, who has a following of 70.6K on Instagram, got 1,164 insta-hearts for her brownies-and-cuppa Foodie shot - one of the highest hits she's got for a foodgram.
Pastry chef Pooja Dhingra's Foodie filters: Yum, BBQ and romantic. BBQ worked best with brownies, she says
But, Dhingra is not sure she is going to use it often. "It requires you to save the photo, and then post it on Instagram. That's too much work for someone like me who takes shots on the spur-of-the-moment and posts instinctively. It may be great for those who spend time styling their photos." Other things that Dhingra liked on Foodie: its Fresh and Yum filters. What puzzles her about the app: the small variations in filters, such as Romantic One, Romantic Two and Romantic Three. "There are three variations of each filter. That's too many options!" she says. People with poor decision-making skills will find Foodie a maze, this way. But Chandra takes Foodie's side, and says, "Small variations and minor differences go a long way, as is evident when you work with Photoshop."
"It's not better than Instagram, but it is really focused on food," says Ronak Rajani, the founder of Instagram food-guides, Mumbai Foodie, Pune Foodie and Drink Mumbai. The filters know which elements need to pop-up, and which others need to be hushed for a better tone to your picture. Rajani is certain that he is going to use the app regularly in the days to come.
Chef Nachiket Shetye, who posts daily on Instagram, has experimented with Foodie's angles feature, essential for getting perfect, well-aligned top shots of dishes. The app assists you in understanding which way to head - right, left, closer or farther - to get a food-flattering shot. Shetye is not sure what the big deal about Foodie is, though.
"It's just another camera extension app. What puts me off is the Foodie logo watermark that gets saved along with the photo. I don't think people want watermarks on their shots," he says. However, he calls back to update us on developments, "Foodie just removed the feature. The watermark is now optional." Good save, Foodie, good save.
