A digital menu is your menu on a web page, opened by scanning a code at the table. It costs nothing to reprint and it can be corrected between two orders.
Start with the category structure
Most menus need between four and eight categories. Fewer than four and diners scroll past everything. More than eight and the category bar becomes its own navigation problem.
A structure that works for most full-service kitchens:
- Starters or farsan
- Main course
- Breads and rice
- Beverages
- Desserts
Put the category people order from most at the top. For a café that is coffee, not food. For a thali house it is the thali, and everything else is a footnote.
Write descriptions that do work
A description earns its place by answering a question the name leaves open. "Butter Chicken" needs no explanation in Ludhiana and a full one in Lisbon. "Locho" needs one almost everywhere outside Surat.
Three rules:
- Lead with the ingredient that decides the order.
- Keep it under fifteen words. Diners scan, they do not read.
- Say what is unusual, not what is obvious.
Price where the eye lands
Prices set flush against the item name invite line-by-line comparison shopping. Prices placed after the description, in the same weight as the body text, read as information rather than as a bill.
Dot leaders — the row of dots running from the dish name to the price — are a printed-menu convention for a reason. They let the eye travel across without the column of figures becoming the first thing scanned.
Mark dietary information properly
Vegetarian and spice indicators are the most-used feature of any menu in India. Mark every item, not just the ones you think need it. An unmarked item reads as "nobody checked", which is worse than a wrong mark.
Photograph selectively
A photograph next to every item makes a menu feel like a delivery app. Photograph the six dishes you want to sell and leave the rest as text.
Put the code where hands already are
Table stickers work. Stickers on the table surface work better than tents because they survive being moved. Menus printed with the code in the corner suit venues keeping a physical menu as well.
Test the scan yourself, at the table, in your dining room's actual lighting, before printing a hundred.
