How to Design a Menu for a Hotel Restaurant
Set Your Hotel or Resort Restaurant Up for Success
Your property’s food outlets aren’t just for guests. They can be a great way to attract diners and foodies from across the city. The perfect menu can make your in-house restaurants a resounding success. To reach this status though, you’ll need to follow best practices for how to design a menu for a restaurant. Get advice from Foodbuy’s Culinary Solutions Team.
Quick Tips for an Ideal Menu
Sometimes, the magic is in the formatting. Our culinarians recommend following these simple rules as the “secret sauce” for how to design a menu for a restaurant:
- Limit menus to a single page, if possible. More than that can be overwhelming for guests without adding significant value.
- Keep menu categories simple and straightforward: organize by appetizers or starters, entrees or mains, desserts, and sides.
- Be upfront with pricing. Make sure costs are easy to find and read, including prices for add-ons or a la carte options. Also, consider pricing your dinner dishes in full dollar amounts for simplicity.
- Highlight specials or your top-profit dishes with boxes, dividers, and eye-catching colors to make sure they stand out.
- Use descriptive language. Customers will be pulled in by dish descriptions that highlight the flavors and textures of each menu selection.
Lastly, try to design your menu with colors and iconography that matches your brand image. This consistency will make your operation even more memorable.
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Accommodate Your Diners
Do you often get requests for gluten free menus? What about vegetarian, vegan, or allergen-specific choices? Many diners have dietary restrictions, from lactose intolerance to low carbon focuses. If you’re able to offer dishes that suit these needs, you’ll want to make sure you’re broadcasting this information. Putting a note on your physical menu or your website can be a good way to get diners in the door knowing they’ve made the right choice.
Source With the Seasons
Do you offer seasonal specials at your hotel or resort restaurant? If not, you could be missing out on a great way to appeal to consumers. Sourcing ingredients with the seasons can allow you to provide fresh and wholesome dishes with key ingredients sourced locally. While this may not be your priority with all dishes, providing seasonal specials could bring more diners through the doors and advocating a positive culinary experience.
Put Quality First
The key to how to design a menu for a restaurant is to focus on quality and authenticity at every step. This means putting care and consideration into your recipe development, ingredient sourcing, and preparation processes. If you want support on sourcing efforts, reach out to a Foodbuy Hospitality representative today. We offer product and service programs that support hospitality operations at every level.