Top restaurants ‘pay for Instagram models to eat for free and create ambience’

Ever thought fine dining restaurants would be a lot nicer if you didn’t have to pay for anything?

Well, you’ll be glad to hear that there is a now a way to get around all those pesky bills burning a hole in your pocket.

It’s easy, you just have to be a ‘beautiful’ model and have lots of followers on Instagram. Great!

The ‘free dining experience’ is being offered exclusively for models who are signed up to a ‘creative platform’ on Instagram called Model Restaurant.

Platform creator Giovanbattista Cimmino says he has 12 top restaurants in London and more than 100 in Europe all paying a monthly fee in return for a steady stream of models.

He said: ‘We have about 200 models and we expect to grow in the next two years to about 10,000 models worldwide.’

The 29-year-old entrepreneur says the models do not have to pay for anything as they are providing the restaurant with an ‘ambience’.

He told metro.co.uk: ‘They get a free meal because they are paying with their image.

‘Our value is the image of having them there and giving the benefit of a whole ambience.’

All the models have to do is act ‘like real customers’ and share photos from the restaurant on Instagram.

Giovanbattista says they do not tag his platform in their photos or say ‘thank you’ to the restaurant, so it does not look like they were given a complimentary meal.

He says his platform is ‘very confidential’ as restaurants do not want their competitors and other customers knowing models are eating there for free.

He said: ‘They don’t want other restaurateurs and customers to know they are doing that.

‘It’s not something you are proud to talk about. But they are proud to have a restaurant full of beautiful models.’

The entrepreneur, who founded the Remodels modelling agency and London Life blog on Instagram, would not disclose the names of his clients but said some of ‘the best restaurants of London will be joining in the next week’.

He said: ‘For privacy, we don’t want the [restaurant] names to come out. Otherwise you will think a table of four girls in a restaurant are not paying, which can create some damages from other points of view.’

Giovanbattista says models sign up by following the Model Restaurant Instagram page, which is set to private.

They have to be represented by a modelling agency to get accepted and have a decent following on Instagram.

‘These models are famous on Instagram but they do not have to be Kendall Jenner,’ Giovanbattista said.

He added: ‘What we are offering is a service to models. We are not saying “how beautiful are you?” We are saying “are you a model, yes or no?”’

The Model Restaurant Instagram page only has 226 followers at the time of writing, but the entrepreneur hopes to grow this into a network of thousands of models.

So far, the entrepreneur says he has restaurants in London, Milan and Miami, but hopes to expand the platform into ‘summer destinations and other big cities like New York’.