A menu is a sales document. Every dish is a product. Most restaurants treat the menu like a spec sheet, ingredients listed, adjectives spammed, nothing sold.
What most menus say
"Perfectly seared, hand-crafted, artisanal grass-fed beef tenderloin, served with locally-sourced seasonal vegetables and a rich demi-glace reduction."
Every word doing zero work. The guest skims it and orders the pasta.
The shape that works
Three parts, under 25 words:
- The hook. One sensory anchor, texture, temperature, aroma. Not an adjective.
- The signature detail. The one thing that only your kitchen does, the 48-hour dough, the dry-aged 45 days, the smoke.
- The upsell. The wine or side that makes the plate whole.
The words to stop using
- "perfectly"
- "artisanal"
- "hand-crafted"
- "locally-sourced" (unless you name the farm)
- "seasonal" (unless you name the season)
They signal you're padding.
The menu psychology layer
- Anchor pricing: the highest-priced dish makes the second-highest look reasonable.
- Right-column-price avoidance: don't line prices up. Guests read the column, not the dish.
- No dollar signs: they trigger price-consciousness.
The Menu Description Generator generates this shape from your dish list.