There are a million and one Instagram accounts out there trying to make it big on food porn pics. Maybe you’ve gotten a few hundred followers– maybe even reached four digits. But @New_Fork_City has over 45,000 followers (and will probably have more by the time you read this). They are exactly what one would call “instafamous.” Gillian Presto, Natalie Landsberg and Emily Morse are native New Yorkers and recent high school grads. Naturally, we at Spoon wanted to meet these social media celebs so we hit them up and invited them over to our office for an interview.
Spoon: How did you guys get started?
Gillian: Natalie and I started it over the summer under a different name. Then we stopped because we were going away for the summer. Then Emily brought back up the idea and we decided to all work on it together. We’re now using the same original account but under the new name @new_fork_city.
Spoon: So when did you start the account?
NFC: October 2013
Spoon: What’s your technique when you take food pics?
Natalie: Make sure the lighting is good.
Gillian: The camera needs to be focused.
Emily: We like either a bird’s eye view or a tilted angle.
Spoon: What’s the secret to getting thousands of Instagram followers?
NFC: We started by following every one of our Facebook friends and then our friends sort of spread the word. We never used “tags for likes” or anything else to buy followers/cheat. We would say that having high quality photos, using geotags and being genuine are really important.
Spoon: What are your most popular posts? Which get the most likes?
NFC: Sushi, pizza, ice cream and our homemade desserts.
Spoon: What’s your favorite place to eat in the city and what do you get there?
Natalie: Momoya. Get the ginger dressing on anything. Or Rubirosa—get the vodka pizza.
Gillian: The Smith mac and cheese.
Emily: Bar Italia. Try the burrata and chicken salad with avocado and mozzarella.
Spoon: Do you see yourselves working with food one day?
Natalie: Probably, in one way or another.
Spoon: Are there any perks to being insta-famous?
NFC: Yes, we get A LOT of free food. People will send us stuff.
Spoon: Guilty pleasures?
Emily: Momofuku cornflake marshmallow cookies.
Natalie: Anything involving s’mores or cookie dough.
Gillian: Holey Cream.
Spoon: Any tips for people who are trying to get Insta-famous?
NFC: Keep it genuine with good pictures of things people actually want to eat. And make sure you have some photos posted already before you start following people to avoid seeming totally sketchy.
We’re looking forward to having the New_Fork_City girls join us as Spoon contributors. If you haven’t yet, go follow them on Instagram now!