Beyond simply listing available dishes, restaurant menus are carefully crafted tools that influence customer choices, convey a restaurant's identity, and even reflect societal norms. From the strategic placement of items to the evocative language used, every element of a menu can play a role in the dining experience. Understanding the psychology and design principles behind menus offers insight into how restaurants communicate with their patrons and manage
their operations.
Menu Formats and Pricing Strategies
Menus can be presented in various formats, each with its own implications for the dining experience. They are commonly printed on paper and given to diners at the table, but can also appear on display boards inside the establishment, outside to attract passersby, or on digital screens. Since the late 1990s, many restaurants have also made their menus accessible online, catering to a digitally-savvy clientele. The way food is priced also varies; menus may be "à la carte," where individual dishes are listed and priced separately, or "table d'hôte," offering a fixed sequence of courses for a set price.
An interesting aspect of menu pricing involves the absence of prices. Menus for private functions, pre-paid meals, and similar events typically do not include prices. Historically, until the 1970s and 1980s, two types of price-less menus were common in normal restaurants: the "blind menu" and the "women's menu." The "blind menu" was given to guests at business meals or other dinners where hosts preferred that diners not see the prices, aiming to make guests more comfortable ordering. The "women's menu," prevalent in some high-end restaurants until the early 1980s, was a regular menu without prices, intended for female diners. This practice, often defended as a courtesy, like men standing when a woman enters a room, faced criticism. In 1980, Kathleen Bick filed a discrimination lawsuit against L'Orangerie in West Hollywood after receiving a women's menu without prices while her male business partner received one with prices. Bick stated she felt "humiliated and incensed." Although the lawsuit was dropped, the restaurant subsequently ended its gender-based menu policy. While price-less menus for women largely disappeared after the 1980s, some establishments, like Le Gavroche in London, reportedly continued the practice for women dining at tables booked by men as late as 2010.
The Art of Menu Writing and Puffery
Beyond pricing, the language used on menus is a critical component of their design. In the United States, typical menu categories include appetizers, "side orders and à la carte," entrées, desserts, and beverages. Side dishes might encompass soups, salads, and dips. Some menus feature age-restricted sections for "seniors" or children, offering smaller portions at reduced prices. These sections can also be presented as separate menus, such as dessert or beverage lists, or wine lists. Children's menus, sometimes called "Okosama lunch" in Japan, may even double as placemats with games and puzzles to entertain young diners.
Menus often provide additional information, such as the chef's or proprietor's food philosophy, the chef's résumé (CV), or the restaurant's mission statement. They may also outline restaurant policies regarding ID checks for alcohol, lost items, or gratuities for larger parties. In the United States, county health departments frequently mandate that restaurants include health warnings about raw or undercooked meat, poultry, eggs, and seafood. As a form of advertising, the prose on printed menus is known for its "puffery." Menus frequently highlight preparation processes, emphasize exotic ingredients, and incorporate French or other foreign language expressions to make dishes appear sophisticated and exotic. As one publication noted, this often involves "plopping in foreign words (80 percent of them French) like 'spring mushroom civet,' 'plin of rabbit,' 'orange-jaggery gastrique.'" Part of the function of this elaborate menu prose is to impress customers with the idea that the dishes are so complex that diners could not replicate them at home, thereby enhancing the perceived value and exclusivity of the dining experience.
