What font size works on a menu?

On paper, 10 point is a rule of thumb for the minimum. If you have many older guests, go to 12 point or larger, with a plain typeface and dark letters on a light ground. Online, 16 pixels, a browser’s default size, is the minimum on a phone.

Do my dishes need photos?

Online, yes, at least for dishes your guest hesitates over or does not know. A Surinamese or Eritrean dish without a photo is a gamble for someone who has never eaten it. Good photos are sharp, taken in daylight and close up. If you cannot manage that, no photo beats a poor one.

How often should I renew my menu?

As a rule of thumb, go through the whole menu about once a year to once every eighteen months: what sells, which prices no longer hold, which dishes are missing. Small things, such as a price after a purchasing jump or a seasonal dish, you do in between. Look at what you sell, not at what you find attractive.

How many dishes can a menu hold?

There is no legal maximum. It depends on what your kitchen can handle and what your guest can take in. A short menu reads faster, ties up less stock and shows what you are good at. Keep sections short: a section of seven lines can be taken in, one of twenty cannot.

Menus worth learning from: ten examples and what to copy

A good menu does more than list your dishes. It sells them. Ten examples and six Dutch formats, with what each one does well and what you can copy on Monday.

14 min read 25 September 2026

A plate of curry and naan bread, scattered with fresh coriander.

Your menu sells even when nobody is standing next to it

Most places treat the menu as something that comes with the room: a PDF on the site, a photo of the printed copy. Yet it is where a visit turns into an order. Your guest looks, hesitates and picks, and whatever your menu leaves undone at that moment costs you money.

Below are ten menus from American restaurants that handle this well. The names stay out, because you do not need to know the place to follow the decision. Amounts are worked sums in euros, not figures from those places. After that come six Dutch formats.

Do not copy the styling, copy the choice underneath: what goes on top, what sits in a package, which question the menu answers before the guest asks it. How to build a menu in the first place is in the article on making a menu. The site around it is covered in the article on restaurant sites worth studying.

Menus that make the order bigger

A bigger basket rarely starts with a discount, but with how the menu is laid out.

A pizzeria that puts the sides up front

This pizzeria knows what gets ordered with a pizza and puts fries and garlic bread at the very top, no scrolling needed. Its categories sell a mood: “Thin and crisp from the stone oven” instead of “Pizzas”. And a tiramisu labelled “homemade, from grandma’s recipe” is an easier yes than a bare tiramisu.

A Greek place that sells packages

This place built its menu around catering. A section of packages, say a party platter for ten people at one price, takes the arithmetic off the guest. Suppose the separate dishes add up to €185 and the package costs €159: the guest sees one amount and has nothing to add up. The description says what is in it and how many it feeds, and the section header shows who handles requests. There is more on these jobs in the article on catering as a second source of income.

A bagel shop that thinks in quantities

This shop sells the same bagel singly, by the half dozen and by the dozen. Suppose €2.50 each, six for €13, twelve for €24. Every bagel gets cheaper, yet the order jumps from €2.50 to €24. The cream cheese is a section of its own with six flavours rather than a tick box, and every photo is taken close up and in the same style.

More ways to raise the amount per order are in the article on average order value.

Menus that defend the price with words

A guest who does not know what they are getting picks the safe or the cheap option. Four places make sure they know.

An Asian restaurant that writes for an occasion

This menu has a section for a regular occasion: a sharing platter for four, say €80, meant for the group that comes on the same evening every month. The chef’s specials sit apart and hold the dishes with the best margin, with no discount. And the wording does the work: “creamy broth, drawn out for hours, with a dry finish” justifies €16, “pork with noodles” at most €11.

A deli that opens with a reason

At the top sits a welcome code for the first order, so the guest has a reason before they even search. Below it comes a “Popular” block with photos for anyone who cannot decide. The description says what is in it, aged ham, fresh burrata and rocket, and that explains a sandwich at €11. Run the numbers on a welcome discount first, though, because it is a cost. How to do that is in the article on pricing your menu.

A crêpe place with its own voice

Here the menu is split into sweet and savoury, so anyone who already knows what they fancy has nothing to search through. A “Seasonal” section with an end date creates urgency without a discount: this dish is here for four weeks. The copy is entirely in the voice of the place, funny and a little over the top, and those are the lines guests pass on.

An Ethiopian restaurant that explains unfamiliar dishes

To a new guest the names mean nothing, and someone who does not know what they are ordering picks something else or nothing at all. This menu puts one plain sentence under each dish: what it is filled with, how it is cooked. Not “house speciality” but “crisp little triangle filled with spiced beef or lentils”. That works just as well for Surinamese, Indonesian or Syrian dishes. The daily specials sit at the top, and every sandwich carries the same line saying it was made fresh that day.

Menus that answer questions before the guest asks them

Every question a guest has to ask is a chance to drop out.

A restaurant group that asks where you are first

The first choice is the branch. With several addresses that is right: the guest decides where to collect instead of the menu guessing, and that prevents orders landing at the wrong place. Dish names with character make browsing fun, photos on a dark background give it something premium, and the drinks are described as fully as the food.

A rule often comes with this example, the golden triangle: online readers look at the top first, then right, then down the left. On a phone that triangle does not exist: there is one column, and whatever sits at the top gets seen.

A Caribbean takeaway with a black menu

The whole menu is black, a statement that suits the food and does more for the brand than a logo. The detail that counts sits with the lunch plates: the hours are right there, say Tuesday to Friday from eleven to three, so nobody has to phone. Every plate is complete with rice and two sides. Suppose the main on its own costs €10 and the plate €13.50. Whoever takes the plate spends €3.50 more and eats a full meal.

An Indian restaurant that keeps the menu alive

Under “Popular” sit the specials of the month, starters and mains separately. A regular who sees something new has a reason to order more often. The descriptions carry the work: how long the meat was marinated, over what fire it was cooked, which spices went into the sauce. That says more about quality than any adjective. Every section shows the hours it is available.

Six formats a Dutch guest recognises

The Netherlands has menus of its own, each with a trick of its own.

The lunch menu

Short and quick: soup, uitsmijter, toastie, a sandwich of the day. Your guests have an hour. A good lunch menu states its hours and fixes combinations, such as soup with half a sandwich at one price. Copy this: hours in the header, one combination at one price and a list that fits on one screen.

The borrel menu

A borrel is the Dutch round of drinks and snacks, and its menu sells sharing: bitterballen, cheese, sausage, nachos. It prices in portions for the table, so nobody has to guess. Suppose eight bitterballen cost €8, sixteen €14 and a borrel platter for four €32. Copy this: portions for the table, a drink beside each and drinks given a place of their own, with descriptions.

The snack bar wall menu

A menu on the wall is read while queuing, so it works with numbers and groups: fries, snacks, rolls, combination menus at one price. Copy this online: keep the numbers and the combination menus, make sauces and extras a choice on the dish instead of a separate line, and put photos on the five dishes you sell most.

The takeaway’s online menu

Chinese-Indonesian, pizzeria, shawarma: that menu is used by phone and online, and numbered dishes help both. Show the delivery area, minimum order and delivery charge before the guest puts anything in the basket. Let dishes carry the same name and the same price on your site, on Google and on Thuisbezorgd or Uber Eats. What to charge for delivery is in the article on delivery charges.

The seasonal menu

The Dutch asparagus season traditionally runs until 24 June, mussels belong to autumn and stamppot to winter. A seasonal menu rotates part of the menu and keeps the rest steady. Copy this: four to six rotating dishes with an end date. A seasonal calendar such as the one from Milieu Centraal, a Dutch consumer information body, shows what comes from the land when.

The menu in two languages

If tourists, expats or students are among your guests, a menu in two languages helps. Explain dishes instead of translating word for word, keep the original name and give allergens in both languages. Write the English as a text of its own and offer a language switch online. Change a price, and change it in both.

What the good menus share

Put the examples side by side and you will see that no menu is pretty for the sake of pretty. Every decision does something to the order.

What the menu does	How	Where you see it
Makes the order bigger	Packages, quantities, fixed sides	The pizzeria, the Greek place, the bagel shop
Defends the price	Taste, preparation and origin in the description	The Asian and Indian restaurants, the deli
Takes questions away	Hours, branch, explanations for unfamiliar dishes	The restaurant group, the Caribbean place, the Ethiopian restaurant
Gives a reason to come back	Specials, seasons, temporary dishes	The crêpe place, the seasonal menu

That is menu engineering without the name: you decide what the guest sees first and what comes with it. How to do that with your own sales figures is in the article on menu engineering.

One thing does not change between menus. On a delivery platform your menu sits in the platform’s layout. On your own site it is entirely yours, and you know who is ordering. Which parts of an ordering site earn their keep is in the article on features that pay for themselves.

What has to be right on every menu

However original your menu is, two things are not a matter of taste.

Prices: a consumer price is stated in euros, including VAT and any costs the guest cannot avoid. That is the rule the ACM, the Dutch consumer authority, supervises. If costs depend on the order, such as delivery, show how they are calculated.
Allergens: guests must be able to find out which of the 14 allergens a dish contains, including for unpackaged food. That can be done in writing or verbally. If you choose verbally, state on the menu that guests can ask your staff, and keep a written overview ready for your staff and the NVWA.

Rules change. The details are with the ACM, the NVWA and Koninklijke Horeca Nederland, the trade association.

What to do on Monday

You do not have to remake your menu. Open it on your phone the way a guest does and go through this.

Open your menu on mobile data. Can you see within seconds what you sell first?
Pick one thing from the examples that fits your place. One, not three.
Make a “Popular” block of your three bestselling dishes, with photos.
Bundle one combination at one price: a lunch plate, a borrel platter, a package for four.
Rewrite the description of the five dishes you earn the most from.
Put the hours on every section, and check that names and prices match on your menu, on Google and on the delivery platforms.
Change one thing a week and look at your sales figures before you take on the next.

A good menu rarely appears in one go. It appears because someone improves one thing every week. You can read more about the digital menu at Portano on the menu page.

Common questions

What font size works on a menu?: On paper, 10 point is a rule of thumb for the minimum. If you have many older guests, go to 12 point or larger, with a plain typeface and dark letters on a light ground. Online, 16 pixels, a browser’s default size, is the minimum on a phone.
Do my dishes need photos?: Online, yes, at least for dishes your guest hesitates over or does not know. A Surinamese or Eritrean dish without a photo is a gamble for someone who has never eaten it. Good photos are sharp, taken in daylight and close up. If you cannot manage that, no photo beats a poor one.
How often should I renew my menu?: As a rule of thumb, go through the whole menu about once a year to once every eighteen months: what sells, which prices no longer hold, which dishes are missing. Small things, such as a price after a purchasing jump or a seasonal dish, you do in between. Look at what you sell, not at what you find attractive.
How many dishes can a menu hold?: There is no legal maximum. It depends on what your kitchen can handle and what your guest can take in. A short menu reads faster, ties up less stock and shows what you are good at. Keep sections short: a section of seven lines can be taken in, one of twenty cannot.

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