Megan Conniff expounded on the shift in food photography from being more heavily styled to being more realistic in her blog post from today, Picturing the Perfect Meal. (http://smartblogs.com/restaurants/2010/09/03/picturing-the-perfect-meal-trends-in-food-marketing/)
Conniff indicated that many restaurants (and food photographers) were subsequently moving to a "what you see is what you get" mentality when it came to representing their dishes. This goes directly along the lines of stimulating clients' palettes before they even sit down at your restaurant by enticing their appetites with good visual images of your product.
Not only is this a good way to get guests in the door, but it also goes a long way in pushing for repeat business when showing guests all of the different (and delicious!) options available to them. Remember, even though the trend is to more realistic images, you still need to take (or have taken) quality, styled photographs of the dishes you would like to feature. (This fully assumes that your chef is already handling plating with some semblance of artistry).
One necessary place for good product images remains your restaurant's website. Use mainstay (this is what we're famous for) dishes and incorporate these images on your website. Another great option is to include product images when you convey messages via social media.
Facebook is a fantastic example, in that you are able to email pictures of your daily specials directly to your Facebook account. For our picture of our Chicken Cordon Blue pasta special, we simply added the caption in the Subject field and emailed the picture to our special Facebook upload address.
Twitpic is another great tool, in that you are able to share your pictures via Twitter in real time.
Honestly, with all of the great buzz about social media, having a presence and getting your guests hungry is worth the time and expense related to obtaining some quality food photographs for your restaurant.
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