It really is all about the lighting, presentation and a decent macro lens.
My favourite food cinematographers:
Incredible stuff. Filmed with Red Epics mostly in slow motion, these guys really understand lighting and choreography
My favourite food cinematographers:
Incredible stuff. Filmed with Red Epics mostly in slow motion, these guys really understand lighting and choreography
That pretty much sums up all of photography, though. It's like saying "programming is all about structuring the code". The devil is in the details.
Often a tilt-shift lens. That's how they place the plane of focus horizontally across a plate so that the food is in crisp focus but the table is softened.
Most photography is nowadays done with vertical planes of focus ( thanks for nothing, SLRs ) but choosing your plane used to be as integral as choosing shutter speed and aperture.