How to make a restaurant menu, from dish list to print

Before you design, decide what you sell

A menu is not an inventory of your kitchen: it is a selection. Before thinking about colours or fonts, write down every dish you serve now and mark three things next to each one:

• Does it sell? The ones that go out every day and the ones hardly anyone orders.
• Does it make money? Ingredient cost against selling price.
• Can your kitchen send it out at the peak of service without blocking the pass?

Dishes that pass none of the three are candidates to go. The ones that only sell now and then can move to a specials board. A shorter menu reads better, cuts waste and tells customers you know what you are doing.

The order of the sections

Follow the order in which people eat. A layout that works for most venues:

1. Snacks and starters
2. Salads and sharing plates
3. Fish
4. Meat
5. Grill or house specials
6. Sides
7. Desserts
8. Drinks (on a separate sheet if the list is long)

Two caveats. If your strength is the grill or your pies, move them up: what defines you shouldn’t sit halfway down the page. And keep section names clear. “From the sea” or “From the garden” work; a clever name that makes people guess what’s inside doesn’t.

How many dishes

There is no right number, but there is a simple test: can each section be read at a glance? Every extra dish means more buying, more prep and more space on the page. If a section passes ten or so dishes, consider splitting it (for example “Meat” and “From the grill”) or cutting it back.

A short menu also gives the design room to breathe: bigger type, more space between dishes and fewer pages to print.

How to show prices

• No £ sign on every line. Plain numbers are enough, with a note at the foot: “All prices include VAT.”
• One format. Either everything with two decimals (9.00 and 12.50) or whole numbers when they are whole (9 and 12.50). What looks careless is mixing 9.00 with 12.5.
• Always in the same place, aligned the same way across the whole menu.
• Special prices explained: “£6.50 per 100 g”, “for two to share”, “per person, minimum two”, or separate columns for small and large plates.
• The final price. In the UK the price on the menu must include VAT, and a service charge or cover charge must be shown as clearly as the food prices. In the US, prices usually exclude sales tax, which is added at the till; if you add an automatic gratuity for large parties, say so on the menu.

Don’t list dishes from cheapest to most expensive: it invites people to choose on price instead of appetite.

Descriptions that help people order

A good description answers “what exactly is it?” in one line:

• Main ingredient, technique and what comes with it: “Roast cod, crushed new potatoes, brown shrimp butter”.
• Quantity when it matters: “6 pieces”, “8oz”, “for two to share”.
• Origin when it adds something: “Cornish crab”, “Herdwick lamb”. Only if it’s true.
• No empty adjectives: “delicious”, “exquisite” or “lovingly prepared” tell the customer nothing.

Obvious dishes (fish and chips, a bowl of chips) can go without a description. That’s fine.

Type and legibility

• Two typefaces at most: one for headings and one for the text. Or a single family using its different weights.
• Generous size. Picture a table in dim light and a customer who left their glasses at home. Type that is too small is one of the most common mistakes.
• High contrast: dark ink on light paper.
• Capitals only for short headings. A whole paragraph in capitals is hard work to read.

Paper and finish

Before ordering copies, print a test on ordinary paper and read it at one of your tables, under the real light of service.

The foot of the menu matters too

Keep the bottom of the menu for the practical details: an allergen note (“If you have a food allergy or intolerance, please speak to a member of staff before ordering”), “All prices include VAT”, your service charge policy if you have one, opening hours, phone number and social media. It’s what people look for once they’ve decided what to order.

Make it in MenuDesign

Take a photo of your current menu or paste the text, and MenuDesign lays it out in one of its 50 designs. You check dishes and prices, mark allergens, choose a format (A4, A5, US Letter, booklet, tri-fold…) and download a print-ready PDF. It’s free and there’s no account: everything is saved in your browser.