How to write a menu that sells

A menu that sells is short, laid out in the order people eat, and written so every dish is easy to picture: what it is, one detail that makes it yours, and a price that already includes VAT. Put the dishes you most want to sell where eyes land first, declare allergens clearly, and make sure the menu online says exactly what the one on the table says.

Most menus do not fail on the food. They fail because they are long, vague and out of date, and the customer orders the safe thing or goes elsewhere.

Keep it short enough to choose from

A long menu feels generous and works against you. Every extra dish is more stock in the fridge, more prep, more waste and more time a customer spends reading instead of ordering. It also hides your best cooking among things you do because you always have.

A handful of dishes per section is enough for most places. Go through the menu with last month's sales beside you and ask of each dish: does it sell, does it earn, and would anybody miss it? A dish that does none of the three is costing you shelf space.

Lay it out in the order people eat: small plates or starters, then mains, then sides and desserts, with drinks on their own page or panel. A customer should be able to see the shape of a meal at a glance.

Put your best dishes where people look

Most people do not read a menu, they scan it. The first item in a section and anything set apart from the list get more attention than the middle of a long column.

Use those positions for the dishes you most want to sell: the ones that leave a good margin and that the kitchen is proud of. Both matter. A high-margin dish that disappoints loses you the customer, and a beloved dish that loses money on every plate is a habit you are paying for.

Avoid a neat column of prices down the right-hand side. It invites people to read down the numbers and choose by price. Put the price at the end of each description, in the same type as the text.

How do you write a menu description that sells?

Say what is on the plate, then one thing that makes it yours. That is the whole formula.

Compare these two:

• "Delicious succulent chicken, lovingly prepared with our special sauce."
• "Chicken thigh, charred on the grill, with garlic butter and skin-on chips."

The first is three adjectives and a secret. The second lets somebody taste it. Plain, specific words sell food: the cut, the cooking method, the sauce, what it comes with.

A few rules that keep descriptions honest and useful:

• Name the source only if it is true and you can keep it true. A named farm or fishery is a strong line, until the supply changes and the menu does not.
• Do not claim "homemade" or "local" loosely. A customer who asks and gets a vague answer trusts the rest of the menu less.
• Say what might surprise people. Spicy, served pink, contains raw egg, a large portion meant for two.
• Keep it to one line. If it needs a second, it is usually carrying adjectives.

Declare allergens properly

Allergen information is not optional and it is not a footnote. The 14 regulated allergens must be declared for every dish: cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, peanuts, soybeans, milk, nuts, celery, mustard, sesame, sulphites, lupin and molluscs.

The clearest way is in writing, on the menu or on an allergen sheet that matches it dish for dish, with a simple key such as numbers beside each item. Make sure every member of staff knows where it is and who to ask. And treat a recipe change as a menu change: a new sauce with mustard in it makes the old allergen sheet wrong on the day it goes out.

Mark dietary options too: vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free. People who need them look for them first, and a menu that answers the question before they ask it keeps them at your table.

Prices that include VAT, and nothing to work out

Every price a customer sees must include VAT, so the figure on the menu is the figure on the bill. Price from your costs rather than from the place across the road: our guide to pricing a set menu walks through the method, and the menu price calculator works out a price per dish from its ingredient cost, adds VAT and rounds it for the menu.

Keep price endings consistent and simple. Whole euros or round fifties read cleanly; a mix of 95s, 49s and 75s reads like a supermarket. If you add a service charge to some bills, say so on the menu in plain words, so nobody discovers it on the bill.

Make the online menu match the one on the table

Most people see your menu on their phone before they see it in your hands. An online menu that is out of date, missing prices or a blurry photo of a laminated card loses customers you never knew you had.

On Mosey you can photograph up to five pages of your existing menu and the scanner pulls out the items, prices, descriptions and sections for you to check and save. Re-scan when the menu changes and items are matched by name rather than duplicated, so keeping it current takes minutes. Each item can carry allergens and dietary tags, which customers filter on, and photographs of the dish.

That last part matters more than it sounds. On Mosey every dish can be rated and found on its own, so a well-photographed, well-rated plate can bring in somebody who has never heard of your business. Specials can be given an end time and stop showing by themselves when it passes. Menus on Mosey are free to build, however large.

Let the sales edit the menu

A menu is never finished. Every few weeks, look at what sold and what it earned.

Dishes that sell well and earn well stay where they are. Dishes that earn well but sell slowly need a better position or a better description. Dishes that sell well but earn little need a recost or a small price rise. And dishes that do neither come off, which is the hardest edit and usually the one that improves the menu most.

Get your menu online, correct and current. Claim your business free or See pricing.