Menu design: what separates a polished menu from a page of dishes

Hierarchy: show the eye where to start

A menu has four levels of information, and each one should stand apart from the next:

1. The venue’s name
2. Section headings
3. Dish names
4. Description, allergens and price

To tell levels apart, change one or two things: size, weight or colour. Change all three at every level and the result looks like a collage. A quick test: hold the menu at arm’s length and squint. You should be able to pick out the sections without reading them.

Alignment: pick an axis and stick to it

Choose one alignment and keep it on every page. For lists of dishes, left alignment is the easiest to read. Centred text only works on short, single-column menus with plenty of space around them, typical of fine dining.

What gives away an improvised menu is mixing: some headings centred, others on the left, prices that each start in a different place. Keep the same margin at the top, bottom and sides, and the same gap between columns.

Prices: discreet and always in the same place

There are two schools and neither is wrong:

• A price column on the right, sometimes with dot leaders. It’s quick to scan and works well on long menus or ones with several price columns (small and large, glass and bottle). On the other hand, it invites people to compare prices down the page.
• The price straight after the dish or the description. People read the dish before the figure, and it usually looks more elegant.

Either way: no currency symbol on every line, the same decimal format across the menu, and never list dishes by price.

White space

Empty space is design too. A rule that never fails: more space between sections than between dishes, and more between dishes than between a dish’s name and its description. That way the eye groups things effortlessly.

If the menu doesn’t fit, the answer isn’t to squeeze the margins and shrink the type. It’s to cut dishes or move to a larger format, such as a booklet.

One type family (or two at most)

A single family with its weights (regular, bold, italic) already gives you all the hierarchy you need. If you want more character, pair a heading font with personality with a very legible text font. Three or more typefaces rarely work.

Italics are useful for descriptions; script fonts only for short headings. There’s more in our guide to menu fonts.

Colour: one ink and one accent

One main colour for the text and an accent for headings or highlights. If you have a logo, take the accent from it. Dark backgrounds look good on screen, but on paper they use a lot of ink and are harder to read in low light. More on that in restaurant menu colours.

Menu engineering basics

Menu engineering crosses two facts about every dish: how much it sells and how much margin it makes. That gives four groups:

With that list in hand:

• Highlight one or two dishes per section, with a box or a “recommended” label. If everything is highlighted, nothing is.
• Mind the position. The start and end of each list tend to be read more than the middle. The famous “golden triangle” (centre, top right, top left) is widely quoted, but the evidence is disputed; don’t obsess over it.
• Drop the currency symbol and avoid dotted price columns if you want people to choose by dish rather than by figure.

The full method, with a worked example, is in menu engineering.

Mistakes that give away a rushed menu

• Three or four different typefaces.
• Everything in capitals.
• Prices corrected with a sticker or a biro.
• Tiny type to squeeze everything in.
• Stock photos that look nothing like your food.
• Spelling mistakes and dish names written two different ways.
• Allergens added by hand in the margin.

How MenuDesign handles it

Each of MenuDesign’s 50 designs applies these rules for you: hierarchy, margins, alignment and a font pairing that works. You write the dishes and decide which to highlight; you can drop the currency symbol, choose whether you want dot leaders and adjust the density for more breathing room. Change a price or add a dish and the menu lays itself out again. Free, with no sign-up. Browse the menu designs or open the editor.