If you’re fond of a cheeky takeaway, you might have noticed something strange happening on your favourite delivery app.
Deliveroo, Uber Eats, and Just Eat are being flooded with seemingly delicious dishes that are really nothing more than AI–generated fakes.
Unnaturally perfect burgers, strangely spherical rice, and physics–defying snacks are popping up on restaurant menus all over the country.
But what do these artificial fakes really look and taste like?
The Daily Mail’s reporters put their stomachs on the line to order food from some of the worst offenders.
And some of the dishes that arrived were barely recognisable compared to the glossy images that looked so enticing on the menu.
Although a disappointing lunch break might not be the end of the world, experts say that this growing trend threatens to undermine trust in the entire restaurant industry.
Some food photographers have even called the practice ‘dishonest’ and accused the restaurants involved of ‘false advertising’.
This AI–generated image of pancakes was so far from the actual product that it was genuinely laughable. Left: AI–generated menu. Right: The food as delivered
The Daily Mail’s reporters put their stomachs on the line to order food from some of the worst offenders
What is striking about some of the AI–generated images clogging up our favourite delivery apps is just how obviously fake they are.
Although I assessed each image with an array of ‘AI checker’ tools to be sure, it didn’t take an expert eye to spot that these couldn’t be real food.
Scrolling through a selection of food apps, the first pictures that caught my eye were the mozzarella sticks from a restaurant called Pasta Bowl and Feast.
At first glance, they looked like a standard deep–fried snack you might find on any menu, but even a moment of examination revealed that something was deeply wrong.
What was meant to be a satisfying pull of oozing cheese was strangely looped in on itself like a mind–bending twist in an M.C Escher painting.
This is such a classic tell of AI interference that most modern image generators are sophisticated enough to avoid it, making its appearance on a delivery menu even more surprising.
When the food arrived, it wasn’t wildly different from the image that appeared on the menu and wasn’t even all that bad – it was still mozzarella sticks after all.
However, the food that we received simply looked blander, less crisp, and less appealing than the image that had first grabbed my attention.
Some of the food items had clear AI ‘artefacts’ such as physics–defying cheese. Left: AI–generated menu. Right: The food as delivered
The same pattern was repeated with a nearby Chinese restaurant named Mimi Noodle and Tap.
Although the total lack of reviews was slightly unnerving, I was amazed at just how good all the food appeared to be the photos on Uber Eats.
Sauces were glistening, the vegetables chopped to an almost impossible uniformity, and everything looked steaming hot and freshly made.
And, when my ‘Chinese Pork Ragù Rice Bowl’ arrived, it wasn’t miles off the AI–generated image (and was actually a very nice lunch), but it just looked less polished than what I’d been sold on.
In other cases, however, my disappointment was significantly more severe.
Although the picture of my rotisserie chicken burger, ordered from Five Rivers Rotisserie, already looked like a bit of an AI–generated mess, the actual product was far worse.
The burger was flat, floppy, and came wrapped in the single wettest piece of bread I have ever touched, almost like someone had dropped the food in a mayonnaise–flavoured puddle along the way.
In fact, as we looked through more and more restaurants across the most popular delivery apps, it became clear that the AI–generated images often looked far tastier than the real food ever would be.
Often the food was always that bad and sometimes matched the AI–generated image quite closely. Left: AI–generated menu. Right: The food as delivered
But this isn’t just a quirk of my own personal taste, as studies now show that people actually prefer fake food to the real deal.
Dr Giovanbattista Califano, a behavioural scientist from the University of Naples Federico II who has investigated this effect, told the Daily Mail: ‘AI–generated food images are consistently rated as more visually appealing than real photographs.
‘The reason is that generative models tend to idealise food: images come out glossier, more symmetrical, better lit and more flawless than a real dish photographed under normal conditions.
‘So an AI image can look “better than real” simply because it strips out the imperfections a camera would normally capture.’
Researchers say that AI images are something called a ‘superstimuli’, meaning they possess exaggerated characteristics that amplify the effects of their real counterparts.
Dr Alexander Diel, a psychologist and cognitive neuroscientist from the LVR University Hospital Essen, told the Daily Mail: ‘Food superstimuli have been used for food advertising long before AI, via photo editing.
‘But AI has the potential to create such images with ease.’
However, there is a stark difference between editing an image of real food using AI–powered tools, and dreaming up a food item that never existed.
The food that arrived was far soggier and much less appealing that its picture on the menu implied. Left: AI–generated menu. Right: The food as delivered
‘An AI–generated image of a food served by a specific restaurant will likely not correctly represent the actual food dish, as the AI is not trained on that restaurant’s food images,’ says Dr Diel.
‘So what the customers see will not be the dish actually served.’
In some cases, this leads to some AI–generated menus being not just disappointing, but outright misleading.
For example, I was very intrigued by a restaurant boldly named ‘SPARTA!!!’ which offered a dish called ‘Falafel Bombs’.
While I wasn’t expecting to be blown away, the food that was delivered simply looked nothing like the picture on Just Eat.
Rather than round, herby balls that are ‘golden on the outside, soft inside’ as promised, I received a cardboard cup filled with brown, cardboard–like pucks.
And yet, that still wasn’t the worst AI mixup out of the restaurants operating across popular apps.
The fact that ‘Taste of China’ operated out of a pizza restaurant probably should have been my first red flag.
Although some of the AI images were harder to spot, they were obvious in comparison with the real food. Left: AI–generated menu. Right: The food as delivered
However, its menu was such a baffling mix of obviously AI–generated mashups that I simply couldn’t resist seeing what the food was really like.
Dishes looked as if they had been carved out of wax, and the menu was packed with mysterious spheres of all shapes and sizes.
But the most wonderfully incongruous item of all was the pancakes; listed as an accompaniment to roast duck, and yet proudly showing a steaming stack of fluffy, American–style pancakes.
Ever the optimist and in need of some dessert, I ordered myself a stack of suspiciously cheap pancakes and some ‘Sweet and Sour Prawn Balls’ that looked like Ikea meatballs stuffed with cake batter.
I knew I was probably in for a disappointment, but I did not anticipate just how bad it would be.
After an hour of calling to try and track down my errant delivery, the food finally arrived.
I received a bag of deep–fried prawns so greasy that oil literally poured onto my desk when I opened the bag and – worst of all – a small, sad plastic bag of plain duck pancakes.
It might be easy to laugh this off as the stupid consequences of deliberately ordering dodgy takeout, but people in the food industry are genuinely concerned.
The fact that these ‘pancakes’ were listed as a side for roast duck should have been a hint that something was wrong
Brent Herrig, a New York–based commercial food and drink photographer, says that restaurants are being driven to use AI due to ‘cost and appetite’.
He told the Daily Mail: ‘Social platforms want new images constantly, and a restaurant running on thin margins can’t shoot every week. It’s a rushed phone snap versus AI, and AI wins that fight easily.’
Mr Herrig says he has nothing against using AI to enhance aspects of an image such as lighting or expanding the background, but says there is a ‘clear’ line that shouldn’t be crossed.
‘The problem is when the image depicts a specific dish the customer is being asked to buy, and that dish was never cooked,’ says Mr Herrig.
Just Eat, Deliveroo, and Uber Eats all have guidance for restaurants advising that menu images should accurately represent the dish.
Just Eat and Deliveroo both specifically forbid pictures that are entirely made by AI and use an automated tool to filter out fakes, but as my disastrous lunch clearly shows, that isn’t always easy to enforce.
Meanwhile, the UK Food Standards Agency requires that food businesses label, advertise and market food accurately, and not mislead people about the quality, ingredients or processes used, but don’t specifically prohibit using AI.
Food photographers like Mr Herrig aren’t worried that AI will put them out of a job, but rather that these sorts of AI–generated images will undermine the whole basis of having pictures on a menu.
These mysterious spheres were advertised on the menu as sweet and sour prawn balls. Left: AI–generated menu. Right: The food as delivered
‘Food photography works because there’s an implied promise behind it: someone stood in that kitchen, that plate existed, a person made it. Take that away at scale and the whole category gets discounted,’ Mr Herrig said.
Likewise, Lindsey Kreighbaum, Los Angeles–based food photographer and director, told the Daily Mail that using an AI image was ‘totally misleading if it’s not a photo’.
She adds: ‘I am worried about the false advertising and the implications that come with that.
‘I don’t think customers should have to use their imaginations when deciding on a meal. They should know what they’re getting without question.
‘It’s dishonest, and it’s going to sever any trust between customer and business if they’re not receiving what is pictured.’
A Just Eat spokesperson told the Daily Mail: ‘We support our tens of thousands of independent restaurant partners to ensure the images they use accurately represent to customers the food they sell, including by funding local professional photographers.
‘We don’t currently allow partners to upload AI images and the examples shared with us have been removed.’
Uber Eats and Deliveroo did give a statement in response to the Daily Mail’s questions, and all referenced restaurants were approached for comment.
