Why words matter on the menu

Image by Natalia Ostashova via Unsplash

There is a story on each menu and it is up to the chef or restaurateur how diners read the story – and how to make them read until the end.

Much work goes into the creation of each dish on a menu; likely many hours of research, trying and testing happen before the final dish is ever sold to a customer. Too often not enough effort is made in writing the menu, which is really the most important opportunity to persuade a potential diner to enter your restaurant and buy their dinner. Time spent on crafting the language is time well spent. Here are some of the elements to be mindful of when writing the menu.

Language matters, full stop

Regardless of the language used on a menu, be mindful about how dishes are described. You shouldn’t have to state a dish is home made, for example – a guest in your restaurant would assume what they are being served is made in the restaurant. Equally, why point out that something is fresh? Only call something organic if it really is – in most countries there are official certification programmes that food has to comply with to earn that label. And to help shift those fried items on the menu? Use crispy or crunchy instead of fried. 

Accurate translation

At its most basic, if guests don’t understand what you are selling, they won’t order the dish. Navajas in Spain are razor clams, but more than once I have seen them named as knife fish on a menu. It is true that navajas also means pen knife but in a very different context. Or how about potatoes and egg for tortilla Española. If you are not confident about giving true representations of the dishes in another language – but rely on automated translation services online, it’s better not to try at all.

Include photos

So, what to do? When I travelled in Japan I relied almost exclusively on pointing at photos on the menu in a restaurant and it worked very well. Most places did not even bother trying to translate the words, but in some cases there was no English word for a dish. Visual representations are often the right way to go.

Introduce a glossary

If there are many examples of hard to understand or unfamiliar words why not make it easy with a brief glossary? Wagamama, the chain of Asian food in the UK and beyond, is a good example at a very basic level of this – the menu includes an overview of the different kinds of noodles, so customers quickly get to know their Soba from their Udon.

In the case of especially hard to translate words, you could even choose to add phonetics as an educational detail and a nice way to engage with guests.

Respect culinary culture

Don’t call a dish something it is not. A bug bear of mine is restaurants that are not Spanish advertising that they serve tapas. Japanese tapas, Korean tapas – if the food served is not Spanish you are not serving tapas. Call it small plates, sharing plates, but don’t call it tapas.

This may be a simple annoyance, but more serious cases of cultural appropriation is a problem in restaurants. Things can get complicated when a dish from a certain country or culture is cooked and served by somebody not from that country or culture – especially if they claim them as their own. Remember the outcry when Jamie Oliver cooked paella with chorizo?

If you do cook food of a heritage different to your own, make sure you do the homework and honour the culinary traditions you are benefiting from in your restaurant.