Fine dining and a shawarma shop need completely different reels

“What reels should we make?” is the first question every restaurant asks us. It's also the wrong question. The right one is: “What kind of restaurant are we?”

Every week we film for a fine dining restaurant, an oriental kitchen and a shawarma shop. If we made them the same clips, two of them would look ridiculous. Here's what works for each.

Fine dining: you're not chasing viral, you're chasing the booking

At iMZA it's not about going viral. It's about the experience: fine dining, VIP spaces, an evening that costs what it should. Slow, cinematic, beautifully graded clips don't explode on social media — people go there to be entertained, not to admire the light on a plate.

But that's not the point. Anyone thinking of booking at iMZA checks Instagram first. There they need to see a restaurant that looks exactly as premium as it is: high production value, clean frames, atmosphere. The clip that sells here isn't the most viewed one — it's the one seen by the person already torn between you and somewhere else.

Ideas that work for fine dining: the mood of the evening, plating close-ups, the ritual of a cocktail, private and VIP spaces, hands in the kitchen, the carving at the table. Slow, cinematic, no forced jokes.

The kitchen with personality: the recipe + the sketch

At Duman Oriental Cuisine both worlds work. Clips of the dishes — how they're made, how they look, how they steam — are the foundation: they show the food, make people hungry and keep the page alive week after week.

But the ones that take off are the sketches. The best one so far has three girls, a waiter and a hookah. We won't spoil the joke — watch:

It works because anyone who has ever sat at a table — or served one — has lived that moment. Ideas that work here: the house recipes, plus sketches from the everyday life of the place — the guests, the waiters, the situations everyone recognizes.

The shawarma shop: goofy beats cinematic

What do you do at Dorobanți Döner? It's a shawarma shop. You don't put slow cinematic shots and crazy VFX on a shawarma — it's like showing up to a barbecue in a tuxedo. It's basic, and what matters is being goofy, as funny and as viral as possible, because that's the audience.

Ideas that work for fast food: trends with the sound of the moment, jokes with the team, reactions, challenges, anything that makes you send it to a friend. Quality matters, but personality matters more.

Trends: yes, but with your signature

We do trends at all three. The difference is how we adapt them: to who actually comes to that place and to what we can do differently. A trend copied shot for shot gets lost among a thousand identical ones. A trend with your signature on it — in the light, the rhythm, the people in it — stays yours.

What not to do

Pretend to be premium when you're not. It's harsh, but it shows instantly. A simple place trying to look like fine dining feels fake, and people sense it in the first second. Be exactly what you are — just show it well.

Make AI ads without looking at what comes out. Generate, post, done — and suddenly there are six-fingered hands, melting plates, food that isn't on the menu. AI is a good tool, but someone has to look at the result before your guests do.

The mystery of the 10-second clip

Honestly: we've had clips do unexpectedly well without knowing why. One was shot on a phone, something basic, ten seconds. We're still wondering how.

The lesson isn't that quality doesn't matter. It's that the algorithm isn't an exact science — which is why volume matters. With 15 clips a month, you get 15 chances a month to catch one of those. With one clip a month, you get one.

And the hook? Sometimes it's everything, sometimes it doesn't matter. For clips made for new people — a sketch, a trend — the first two seconds decide whether they stay. For clips aimed at people who already look you up, like a fine dining audience, the atmosphere matters more than the opening punch.

In short

Fine dining: cinematic, as premium proof for people about to book. A kitchen with personality: recipes as the base, sketches to grow. Fast food: goofy, trends, shares. And on top of everything: volume, consistency and a signature people recognize.