The sameness problem behind those unappetizing AI-generated menus
Restaurants are increasingly using AI-generated imagery for menus, resulting in illustrations that often look eerily perfect or physically impossible. Experts suggest these models are trained on narrow aesthetic datasets that lack an understanding of real-world food principles.
Why it matters
This trend highlights the limitations of generative AI in commercial applications and the growing need for content verification tools.
When it first happens to you, you think you’re crazy. You wander into a cafe and look at a menu with a variety of bagel sandwiches, but each illustration looks eerily flawless, precisely symmetrical, and oddly smooth, eliciting a visceral sensation that something isn’t right. You might think you’re paranoid, but you’re not losing your mind. Generative AI menus have hit the restaurant business courtesy of models courtesy of models trained on a narrow, “pleasing” aesthetic that produces a look that feels wrong even when you can’t articulate why.
Sometimes, these illustrations are egregiously fake, like a burrito with cheese so bubbly and melty that it looks more like avant garde art than lunch. More often, they’re so ordinary looking that you only notice something is wrong when you take a second to look more closely.
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