Having each spent over a decade photographing royalty, celebrities and some of the world’s most elegant moments, photographers Lara and Bizzy Arnott, founders of Arnott & Arnott Photography, offer a rare insight into the evolution of fine dining.
With luxury dining shifting beyond beautiful settings and exceptional service to embrace provenance, craftsmanship and storytelling, they explore how photography captures not just the finished plate, but the people, processes and carefully considered details that give every event its meaning, preserving those stories long after the final course has been served.
Fire crackles beneath an outdoor grill as guests begin to arrive, two chefs hard at work in one of several open kitchens. King scallops cook in their shells over coals, South Coast lobster is being prepared for roasting, and Surrey farms beef is searing over the flames. Billecart-Salmon, champagne from a vineyard run by two families near Épernay, begins to flow under the late April sun and an elegant tablescape awaits inside as sous-chefs put the final touches on intricately prepared canapés.
This was Caper & Berry’s recent Spring-Summer showcase at The Walled Garden in Cobham, where Arnott & Arnott Photography captured a microcosm of an evolution happening across fine dining.
For centuries, high-end hospitality has been defined by the grandeur of the venue, the formality of the service and the often unapologetic extravagance of the occasion. Exceptional service and beautiful surroundings remain essential, but luxury is now more prominently found in provenance, craftsmanship, sustainability, and storytelling. Fine dining is no longer about ostentatious touches, but the narratives that accompany the splendour: where the ingredients came from, the hands that cultivated them, and the passion of the people bringing the occasion to life.
If the old adage is that a picture paints a thousand words, then each mouthful in the modern elite culinary experience is clearly following that benchmark. The role of a photographer is now not simply to record the finished plate, but to reveal everything that made it possible.
Through one image of plated wild sea bass at “A Taste of the Wild” — a recent showcase by Salsa Rose — the story of Fin & Flounder could be told. On the surface, we at Arnott & Arnott photographed an expertly created course on its way to a fortunate guest; yet through the photo, we revealed a traditional, family-run business from east London that has deep connections with day-boat fishermen in Scotland and Cornwall.
Fine dining is not just how food is cooked or presented, but about suppliers who farm and grow in ways that regenerate the land, protect nature and encourage biodiversity. The life of Gary from West Sussex, for example, goes a long way to explain why we photographed guests in awe of the Nutbourne tomatoes at Caper & Berry’s showcase. The tomatoes have been growing insecticide-free since 1979 and Gary has 30 years of experience.
It is little wonder, also, that the pudding table at Salsa Rose’s showcase celebrated an extraordinary collection of lemons from the Todolí Citrus Foundation in Valencia. Earlier this year, Salsa Rose travelled to Spain to taste hundreds of citrus varieties and experienced how the foundation celebrates the intersection between food, history, art, culture and science. Through our camera, the sea bass, tomatoes and lemons weren’t just ingredients; they were narrative threads.
Yet modern fine dining is as much about how those overarching narratives are brought to life as it is the stories that inspired them. Focusing a 50mm lens on Caper & Berry’s menu allowed us to hone in on the details that delivered their vision of “elevated country”: the lobster featured a nasturtium garnish, the main course was accompanied by a wild garlic jus gras, and the dessert was wild strawberries with a meadowsweet cream. Even the invitations carried resonance, with arches on the design echoing the circular lawns of The Walled Garden, and a green palette with vibrant orange accents reflecting the surrounding landscape and warmth of the open fire.
Fundamentally, the art of fine dining is the culmination of these many threads — months of growing, planning, cultivation, and collaborating with likeminded partners. Yet for that story to endure beyond a single afternoon or evening, it needs photography that captures not just how something looked, but how it felt.
As Caper & Berry reflected after their showcase: “With open kitchens positioned throughout the event, we wanted guests to feel genuinely connected to the food they were enjoying and to appreciate the skill, craftsmanship and theatre behind every dish.”
Even the finest events will disappear within hours. The tables are cleared, the flowers fade and the last glasses are collected. Photography is what preserves the craft behind them. It allows the story of every grower, chef, florist and host to travel long after the final course has been served.
In a world of constantly shortening attention spans, dining — like photography — is clearly more about the finer details than ever before.
By Arnott & Arnott Photography
Instagram: @arnottandarnottphotography, @caperandberry, @salsarose_london
Photo courtesy: Arnott & Arnott Photography
