Nyama choma to nasi goreng: video menus for Kenyan restaurants

A printed menu tells people what you serve. A ten-second video tells them whether they want it. For restaurants that is the whole game, because food is bought on appetite, and appetite is visual.

Kenya's eating-out scene has grown wide: choma joints on the edge of town, Swahili kitchens at the coast, Ethiopian and Indian restaurants in Westlands and Parklands, fusion menus in Kilimani, chapati-and-beans canteens in every industrial area. They compete for the same thing: the moment, around four in the afternoon, when someone scrolls and decides where dinner is.

What a good food video shows

The best food clips are simple:

• The moment of heat: meat hitting the grill, steam leaving a pot of pilau, a chapati flipping
• The portion: a plate in a hand, so people understand the size
• The place: a glimpse of the room, the people, the light at sunset
• The ask: today's special and how to book or order

Four seconds of each is plenty.

Making it without a shoot

A professional food shoot is a good investment once a year. For daily and weekly content, you need something faster. With Tari Studio you describe the dish and the setting in a sentence, attach photos of your actual food or dining room if you have them, and get a quote showing the length, shape and credits before anything is made.

Two tips specific to food:

1. Attach a real photo of the dish. Customers will compare the plate they receive with the plate they saw. Building the video from your own picture keeps that promise. How attachments work.
2. Pick the model to match the restaurant. AK1 gives a warm, documentary feel that suits a family restaurant or a roadside choma place. AK2 brings bolder colour and music-led pacing, which suits a lounge, a rooftop or a Friday night promotion.

Menus that change every week

Most restaurants change something weekly: a special, a happy hour, a live band. Treat each as its own clip. Build a template in the Studio for your restaurant's look (your colours, your lettering style, your logo placement) and reuse it, so every week's video looks like it came from the same place. Characters and templates.

Words on screen

If the video shows prices or a phone number, check every digit. For a price poster or a menu card, pick Ideogram 4 (clear text) on the quote; it is built for sharp, correctly spelled lettering.

Bookings, not just likes

A beautiful clip that nobody acts on is decoration. End each video with one action: "WhatsApp to book", "Order on delivery apps", or "Walk in before 7 for the offer". When you publish from the Studio, add a tracked WhatsApp link so reservations arrive in the shared inbox tagged with the post that brought them. WhatsApp and leads.

A note on honesty

Never show a dish you do not serve or a portion you do not give. Food ads are judged at the table, and the review that follows is posted with photos.

Make your first menu video.