From Instagrammable bathrooms to smoke bubble cocktails, how food influencers turned urban dining rooms into content factories, for better or worse.
“Ten years ago you went to a restaurant because of the chef – I think those days are over,” says Jason Santos. Citrus & Salt is now open. / Photo by Mike Diskin
Celebrity chef and restaurateur Jason Santos has a mirror in the bathroom of his lively coastal Fort Point Mexican spot Citrus & Salt. On it, scrawled in pink, is a drunken sentence: “I didn’t text you, I texted you tequila.” It’s one of the most Instagrammed spots in a restaurant full of big visual moments — fluffy pink flowers cascading from the ceiling, glittering chandeliers, daisies served in a Patrón tree — and Santos says that’s intentional. “If you create a conversation that people think is so cool that they want to talk about it, you’ve kind of won,” he says.
Santos doesn’t mince his words about the influence of food influencers on Boston’s restaurant scene: “Ten years ago, you went to a restaurant because of the chef – I think those days are over,” he says. “[Now]it’s like dinner and a show.” And he’s not the only restaurateur in Boston these days thinking about how to translate his dining room’s ambiance to an influencer’s social media feed. Kevin Liu, co-founder of Notoro Hospitality Group, which just opened May, a lively French-Japanese spot in the seaport, agrees. “Influencers, the “Stopping by and sharing your experiences is the quickest way to get your restaurant’s image out there.” Although Liu is quick to emphasize that quality is key, he admits that he values over-the-top visuals in his restaurants (see: the smoke bubble cocktail in May). Because “The more people see a video, the more people come in.”
Restaurant design has changed the most in the influencer era. Before social media, Boston’s dining rooms were all brick walls and wooden booths, says Erica Diskin, co-owner of Assembly Design Studio, which imagined many of the city’s hottest restaurants, from Citrus & Salt to Prima. In the early days of Instagram, local restaurants started adding cool touches – a neon sign or a colorful mural. Now, with the explosion of Reels and TikTok videos, “it’s less about that one moment and more about the entire aesthetic of a place,” says Diskin. “It’s the whole movie we’re putting together.” She believes this change has had a positive side effect: “It has helped Boston become a more interesting restaurant scene overall, more in line with New York, Miami and Chicago.”
However, this Instagram-first approach comes with complications. Some chefs and restaurant owners express frustration with the “dark side” of the industry – influencers with barely any followers asking for collaborations (i.e. a free meal) in their DMs; those who come with four guests instead of the reserved two; others postpone the appointment or don’t show up and take tables away from paying guests. But most recognize that it’s a game they should play. As Liu puts it, “I would say they can make or break a business.”
The mirrored bathroom of the bustling Mexican coastal town of Fort Point, Citrus & Salt: “I didn’t text you, tequila did.” / Photo by Mike Diskin
First published in the print edition of our November 2025 issue, as part of our “The Unforgiving, (Sometimes) Lucrative, Surprisingly Wild World of Boston Influencers” package.
