Every space has a personality, and part of our job is finding it through the camera. When the team behind Niku Kitchen.Sushi.Bar asked us to shoot their new restaurant in Zionsville, that personality was clear from the first walkthrough: dark, textured, and intentional.
Lighting a room built for low light
Niku sits inside Sylo Xing on the Zionsville and Carmel border, and the interior is all stone walls, warm Edison lighting, and bubble-glass partitions. Rooms like that look incredible in person and are a real test to shoot. The goal was to keep the mood and the gold warmth intact rather than flattening everything with fill light, protecting the highlights on the food while letting the room stay moody around it.
Plating that does half the work
The food made our job easy. Toro tartare cones with caviar, seared tuna tataki, robata off the charcoal, and cocktails coming out of the bar with real presentation. When a kitchen plates with that much care, close-up food photography is mostly about staying out of the way and catching each dish at its best moment.
A set of the images from the shoot lives in the restaurant's photo gallery if you want to see how the room and the plates came together.
Restaurant and hospitality photography
Niku joins a growing list of restaurants, bars, and venues we have photographed around central Indiana. If you run a hospitality space and want images that keep your room's real character, that is the work we love most. Get in touch and let's talk about your space.