Alt Text for Food and Menu Photos: 12 Examples
By AutoBoost Team · 2026-10-29 · 6 min read
The most common fault on food sites was simply not naming the dish. The alt text was a file name, a camera number, a menu section or just "food and drink menu". On 29 October 2026 we tried 55 pages from restaurant, cafe, takeaway and recipe sites. 26 refused us or no longer existed, so we skipped them. 29 loaded, and 11 of those gave us food or menu photos worth quoting. Every alt text below was copied from the page HTML we fetched that day. We have not fixed the spelling or tidied anything, and we judged the text only, not the pictures behind it.
Key takeaways
- 7 of the 12 examples had a fault. Only 4 were good.
- The good ones all named the dish and said how it was served. They ran from 59 to 135 characters.
- The longest example, at 176 characters, wandered off into the occasion instead of the plate.
- Length was not the cause. What the words were about decided it.
Twelve plates and menu tiles
| Site | Alt text | Characters | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| BBC Good Food | empty | 0 | Fault: empty on the lead pancake photo |
| Jamie Oliver | "Two portions of Crispy moreish lamb chops served on a blue and green plate, with a bowl of carrot pickle and harissa yoghurt alongside." | 135 | Good |
| Nigella | "Image of Nigella's Linguine with Clams" | 38 | Fault: starts with "Image of" |
| Nando's menu | "A Butterfly Burger on a plate with an optional side of PERi-Salted Chips" | 72 | Good |
| Itsu menu | "miso-soup_website_product.jpg" | 29 | Fault: file name |
| Itsu menu | "A bowl of miso soup with tofu, seaweed, and sliced grilled chicken." | 67 | Good |
| Mob | "ACHARI CHICKEN11325 1" | 21 | Fault: a file name with a camera number, no description |
| Yo Sushi menu | "beef tataki" | 11 | Fine: the dish name, nothing more |
| Leon menu | "Breakfast - Until 11am" | 22 | Fault: a menu section label, not the picture |
| TGI Fridays menu | "food and drink menu" | 19 | Fault: generic, names no dish |
| Hairy Bikers | "A close-up of freshly baked cinnamon swirls arranged in a glass baking dish, with a festive red and green striped cloth in the background, perfect for the 12 days of Christmas." | 176 | Fault: too long, ends in marketing |
| Olive magazine | "Baked feta pasta with tomatoes and olives, in a baking dish" | 59 | Good |
Most of these are tiles in a list of recipes or menu items, not the main photo on a single dish page. That is where food sites tend to cut corners.
Start with the dish, in the customer's words
The four good examples share a pattern. Each one starts with the dish, in the words a customer would use on the menu.
- Name the dish first. "A Butterfly Burger", "baked feta pasta", "miso soup". This is what a screen reader user, or a search engine, needs most.
- Say what is on the plate. The miso soup example lists tofu, seaweed and grilled chicken. The Olive example lists tomatoes and olives. A diner wants to know these things before ordering.
- Say how it is served. "On a plate with an optional side of PERi-Salted Chips" and "in a baking dish" give the portion and the sides.
- Count portions if it helps. Jamie Oliver's "Two portions of..." tells you what the photo shows.
Mood, menu sections and prices belong in the text
- Leave out the mood. The good examples do not say "delicious", "mouth-watering" or "perfect for Christmas". The Hairy Bikers example does, and it is the worst of the long ones.
- Leave out the menu section. "Breakfast - Until 11am" is a heading. The picture is a plate, a menu cover or a drink. Put the time and section in the page text, where everyone can read it.
- Leave out prices, calories and allergens. None of the good examples carry them. Real text on the page can be read and updated.
- Leave out the file name and the camera number. "ACHARI CHICKEN11325 1" and "miso-soup_website_product.jpg" show what happens when the upload name becomes the alt text.
Seven faults in twelve, and why length was not the cause
From the 12 rows:
- File name or camera number: 2. Itsu and Mob. Both are the upload name pasted into the field.
- Empty: 1. BBC Good Food, on the lead photo of its pancake recipe. The same page does have a description for sharing ("Easy pancakes on a plate with lemon wedges"), so the words existed. They just did not reach the image.
- Says "Image of": 1. Nigella. A screen reader already announces an image, so the two words add nothing.
- Menu label, not the picture: 1. Leon.
- Too generic: 1. TGI Fridays. "food and drink menu" fits any photo on the page. The file name for that image mentions a whiskey glazed burger ribs dish, so the dish was known and not used.
- Too long: 1. Hairy Bikers, at 176 characters, ending on a seasonal sales line.
That is 7 faults in 12, with 1 fine and 4 good. The numbers say length is not the problem. The 4 good examples ran from 59 to 135 characters and averaged 83. All 3 examples under 20 characters were a fault or no more than fine: 0 (empty), 11 ("beef tataki") and 19 ("food and drink menu"). The one example over 150 characters was a fault. The middle of all 12 sat at about 34 characters, well below what the good ones did.
A fair target for a dish photo is one sentence of about 50 to 130 characters: the dish, the main things on the plate and how it is served. If you need more, the detail belongs in the text next to the photo.
Tip: check the plate against the words
If your menu or recipe pages sit on WordPress, read the draft for each photo next to the picture. Check that the dish name is right and that the ingredients it lists are really in the photo. Shop photos work much the same way, as our guides to product image alt text and book cover alt text show. The main guide to bulk alt text covers how to run the whole job.
The free AutoBoost SEO plugin connects your site to the AutoBoost SEO app. The app writes missing alt text for the images in your posts in bulk. Nothing is used until you approve it, and it then saves to the post and to the media library.