This week the food delivery app Just Eat apologized for AI-generated menu pictures after screenshots of them spread across social media. The company had been testing AI images for dishes that didn't have a photo, and has now paused the trial (Al Jazeera). The examples are funny. They are also a very clear lesson in how image models read food names, and how to write prompts that avoid the same mistakes.

What went wrong

The images that went viral all failed in the same way: the model took the name of the dish literally. Among the examples reported by Boing Boing, indy100 and PetaPixel:

  • A jacket potato shown as a puffer jacket covered in a potato print.
  • A bacon and egg soda bread sandwich shown as a glass of soda with bacon and a fried egg floating in it.
  • Tiger prawns in butter sauce shown with tiny tigers in the bowl.
  • Popcorn chicken served with a side of actual popcorn.
  • A "lighter" breakfast option shown as a cigarette lighter, and garlic bread in the shape of a plane.

According to Boing Boing, Just Eat said every image had been checked by a person before it went live. In a statement quoted by indy100, a spokesperson said: "We've been trialling AI-enhanced images and as with any new technology, it isn't always quite right the first time. We're sorry for any inaccurate images that have been posted. We're in the process of removing them and have paused rolling this out while we further develop the tool to ensure it best serves our partners and customers."

Why dish names confuse image models

An image model has no menu context. If the only input is the line "jacket potato", the model sees two strong visual ideas, jacket and potato, and tries to show both. Food names are full of these traps, especially in British and Irish takeaway menus: soda bread, tiger prawns, popcorn chicken, toad in the hole, pigs in blankets, bubble and squeak, Scotch egg. A human reads these as one dish. A model may read them as a list of objects.

The fix is simple to say and easy to skip when you are filling in hundreds of listings: describe the food, not the name. Here is the formula we use.

  1. Ingredients and cooking. Write what is actually on the plate: "a whole baked potato with crisp skin, split open, filled with butter, grated cheddar and baked beans."
  2. Disambiguate the trap word. If a word has a non-food meaning, say which one you mean: "soda bread here means a dense Irish quick bread, not a drink."
  3. Exclude the wrong reading. Add a short negative line for the specific mistake: "no clothing, no fabric" or "no glasses, no cups, no liquid".
  4. Real portion and serving. One plate, a takeaway box, a paper-lined basket. Honest portions keep the photo close to what arrives at the door.
  5. Camera and light. "45-degree angle, soft daylight, shallow depth of field" gives a clean, believable menu shot without heavy styling.

Example 1: a jacket potato that stays a potato

This is the dish that became a puffer jacket. The prompt below spells out the potato, the fillings and the plate, then rules out clothing. We ran it with Nano Banana:

A realistic menu photo of a British jacket potato: one whole large baked potato with crisp, wrinkled brown skin, split lengthwise and pushed open, filled with a spoonful of butter, grated mature cheddar melting into the fluffy white inside, and a generous ladle of baked beans in tomato sauce spilling to one side. Served on a plain white plate with a small side salad of lettuce and cherry tomatoes. Shot at a 45-degree angle, soft daylight, shallow depth of field, neutral grey background. This is food only: no clothing, no fabric, no props shaped like potatoes, no text.

A baked jacket potato split open with melting butter and grated cheddar, baked beans spilling onto a white plate next to a lettuce and cherry tomato salad

The result looks like a jacket potato you could actually order: wrinkled skin, a fluffy center, melting butter and beans on the side. Nano Banana is a good fit for menu photos because it keeps textures and portions natural rather than glossy.

Example 2: soda bread, not soda

The "bacon and egg soda bread" image was the one that came up again and again. This prompt explains what soda bread is in one sentence and excludes anything liquid. We used GPT Image 2:

A realistic menu photo of an Irish bacon and egg soda bread sandwich. Soda bread here means a dense, crusty Irish quick bread with a floury top, not a drink. Two thick slices of white soda bread farl, toasted, filled with two rashers of grilled back bacon and one fried egg with a runny yolk, a little butter visible. Served on a sheet of brown greaseproof paper on a wooden board, a small dish of brown sauce beside it. Shot at a 45-degree angle, morning daylight, realistic cafe portion. No glasses, no cups, no liquid, no text.

A toasted floury soda bread sandwich with back bacon and a fried egg with runny yolk on brown paper, with a small dish of brown sauce

The bread has the dense crumb and floury crust of real soda bread, the bacon is back bacon, and there is not a glass in sight. One sentence of context was enough.

The cover of this post uses the same approach for four dishes at once, including the tiger prawns and popcorn chicken from the list above, with GPT Image 2:

An overhead food photograph of four British takeaway dishes on a dark wooden table, each one exactly what its menu name means: a whole baked jacket potato split open with melting cheddar and baked beans; a bowl of large shell-off tiger prawns in a glossy yellow butter-garlic sauce with coriander; a paper-lined basket of bite-size golden popcorn chicken pieces with a small dipping pot of sauce; and a sliced baguette of garlic bread with green parsley butter. Natural window light from the left, realistic portions, crisp detail, appetizing but honest takeaway styling, no text, no logos.

The prawns came out with their tails still on, even though the prompt asked for shell-off. Small details like this are exactly what a human check needs to catch before an image goes on a menu.

If you run a restaurant or a menu

  • Use real photos for dishes you sell most. AI is a fallback for listings with no photo, not a replacement for the food customers actually get.
  • Check every image against the real dish, not just for obvious mistakes. Portion size, sauce, sides and garnish all set expectations.
  • Keep it honest. Don't make a dish look bigger or fancier than what you serve, and keep any "AI-generated" label your platform asks for.
  • Write prompts from your recipe card. The ingredient list and plating notes you already have are the best prompt you can give a model.

Try it

Paste either prompt into the EasyImagen generator, swap in your own dish and its ingredients, and keep the disambiguation and exclusion lines. For more ready-made photo prompts, browse the prompt library, and for seasonal food and party visuals, see the new AI Thanksgiving card generator or the other AI tools.