Two23 wrote:
I was sitting on a river bank in western South Dakota last Saturday, eating lunch and taking a few shots with my Leica IIIc. I liked the Summaron 35mm f3.5 because it was very light and short, and didn't interfere with my eating an apple. I consider it a great lens with food.
While most of the answers--quite reasonably--have been macro lenses, there are other lenses with decent minimum focus distance (MFD). For instance, the Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 has a fairly decent MFD. It also makes a good "walkaround" lens. f/2.8 might be a bit slow for a restaurant, but the D7000 works pretty well at higher ISO's by all accounts, so it might be sufficient.
You certainly can't count this lens as a macro, but it seems like it might handle the situation you suggested.
Good one Kent