How to Plate Your Food Like a Thanksgiving Artist

A food stylist went into IHOP and Murray Hill Diner to show how you can turn a dismal plate into an Instagram-worthy masterpiece.

by Beckett Mufson

November 24, 2015, 6:30pm

Images by Manny Hernandez and Chris Dumas, courtesy David Ma

While tossing chunks of turkey and splattering mashed potatoes and gravy all over your plate may have worked in the 90s, Thanksgiving dinner is a little more serious in the age of Instagram. How are you going to display your mother's cooking to the internet with pride if it looks just like what the other 320 million Americans are snapping? A hashtag? Enter David Ma, a creative food stylist and inventor who has taken the ordinary clusterfuck of nosh served by places like IHOP (and likely your family's house), and arranged them into plates worth bragging to your invisible internet friends about.

With photographers Manny Hernandez and [Chris Dumas](http:// tahoechris.tumblr.com), Ma actually went to an IHOP and Murray Hill Diner in NYC to rehabilitate some godforsaken meals, and has explained his process to The Creators Project:

RESTRAURANT ONE: MURRAY HILL DINER (32nd Street and Lexington Avenue)

DISH: Turkey, Mashed Potatoes, Gravy and Veggies

Plate 1 Approach:

"A lot of the turkey pieces had some rough edges and looked pretty torn. Knowing food has it's good and bad sides, I used the turkey medallions to create a fan, hero'ing the nice edges of the turkey. I hid the rough edges by placing mashed potatoes on top and a little gravy around the edges. And as for the carrots, didn't have a sprig of rosemary so I made the next best thing."

Plate 2 Approach:

"The cuts of turkey at this diner were more shaved and thin. I remember seeing thin slices of beef carpaccio rolled up into neat, tight cylinders looking cool so I used that technique but opened the rolls up into a blossom. The mashed potatoes were formed into a cube and I cut the center out to fill the hole with gravy. I personally love gravy all over the plate, but some people I know hate when food touches. This let's you have a little bit of both."

See the full process here.

Plate 3 Approach:

Starches and sides can work really nicely as a bed. Sometimes the crazy, weird disfigured cuts of meat can work to your advantage. I picked more jagged medallions of turkey for this plate. the spinach wasn't sitting well in a mound, so I tried little meatballs to add something interesting to look at—spinach as a Brussells sprout.

RESTAURANT TWO: IHOP (14th & 3rd)

DISH COMPONENTS: Turkey, Mashed Potatoes, Gravy, Veggies & Cranberry Sauce

Plate 1 Approach:

"You can use the shapes of plates to your advantage when plating for Instagram. This oval plate’s curves work nicely as a design element, using gravy and cranberry dots to surround the main. Sometimes curves lead our eyes to follow a story on the plate. This one, like most Thanksgiving plates is neverending."

See the full process here.

Plate 2 Approach:

"Using a mashed potato base I used the thicker cuts of turkey to create a fanned stack, hero’ing the star of the meal, the turkey. One forkful into that pile has the perfect bite for me (turkey, mash, gravy and a little cranberry sauce). The broccoli ring around the stuffing is meant to mimic the cranberry around the potatoes, using circles to show that dish’s heroes."

See the full process here.

Plate 3 Approach:

"This plate takes a more traditional, classic approach using the bed of mashed potatoes and a fan of turkey medallions, smothered with gravy and a few finishing drips leading your eye to the stuffing. This for me is the cross-section between the way mom would put food on your plate with a cleaner placement."