How to make a restaurant menu, step by step

To make a restaurant menu: decide what you'll sell and how many dishes your kitchen can do well, cost each recipe, price it, write short honest descriptions, group dishes in the order guests eat, lay the page out so your best sellers are easy to find, add the legal lines your area requires, then print it and put the same menu online. A first menu takes a few days, most of it costing and testing recipes. This guide walks through the ten steps with a worked example for a 24-dish menu, and every step has a free tool that needs no sign-up.

How to make a restaurant menu: the 10 steps

1. Define the concept and the guest: cuisine, price point, service style (counter, table, takeout) and the occasion people come for.
2. List the dishes and cut the list: write every candidate, then keep only what your kitchen can make consistently at your busiest hour.
3. Write and test the recipes: standard recipes with exact portions, so every plate costs and tastes the same.
4. Cost every dish: add up the ingredients of one portion at today's invoice prices, including garnish, sauce and packaging for takeout.
5. Set the prices: divide the cost by your target food cost percentage, check the dollar margin, and compare with places nearby.
6. Name and describe each dish: short, specific, honest descriptions; name the main ingredients and anything a guest with an allergy must know.
7. Group and order the sections: in the order people eat (starters, mains, sides, desserts, drinks), with the strongest dish first in each.
8. Lay it out and design it: one font family, clear prices without dollar-sign clutter, space around your best sellers, photos only where they help.
9. Add the legal lines: the consumer advisory, calorie information if you're a covered chain, and any state or city notice.
10. Proofread, print and publish online: check every price twice, print a test copy, and put the same menu on your website, Google profile and QR code.

The rest of this guide goes through each step.

Step 1–2: How many items should a restaurant menu have?

There's no official number; it depends on your kitchen, not on what looks generous. A useful test: can the line make every dish on the menu, to standard, during your busiest hour? Each extra dish adds ingredients to stock, prep to do and food that can spoil.

A worked example, a casual American restaurant planning a first menu (illustrative):

Notice the price ladder in each section: a low, a middle and a high option, so every guest finds something and the middle option looks reasonable. And notice the shared ingredients: the chicken in a sandwich also goes into the Caesar salad, so less is wasted.

Step 3–5: How do you cost and price a menu?

Food cost per portion is the cost of everything on the plate, at your current invoice prices. Menu price = food cost per portion ÷ target food cost %. Many restaurants aim for about 28 to 35% on food.

Worked example for one main, the crispy chicken sandwich (illustrative costs):

• At a 30% target: $3.90 ÷ 0.30 = $13.00.
• At a 28% target: $3.90 ÷ 0.28 = $13.93, so $13.95 or $14.
• The margin at $13.00 is $13.00 − $3.90 = $9.10 per sandwich.

Run the same sum for each dish with the recipe cost calculator and the menu price calculator, which also shows the price you'd need on DoorDash or Uber Eats to keep the same money. For the method in depth, read how to price menu items and food cost percentage.

Don't stop at the percentage. A $26 steak at a 40% food cost leaves more dollars than a $9 pasta at 23%. Once the menu has run for a month, the menu engineering matrix sorts each dish by sales and margin; see the menu engineering guide.

Step 6: How to write menu descriptions

• Lead with what it is, then one or two details that make it yours: "Crispy chicken sandwich: buttermilk-brined thigh, house pickles, honey hot sauce, brioche."
• Name ingredients guests care about: the main protein, anything spicy, and any common allergen that isn't obvious (nuts in a pesto, sesame in a dressing).
• Be accurate. If the menu says "fresh," "local," "wild-caught" or "homemade," it must be true; menus are advertising and state consumer-protection laws apply.
• Keep it short. Two lines on a phone screen is plenty.

Step 7–8: How should a menu be laid out?

• Order sections the way people eat: starters, mains, sides, desserts, drinks. On a single page, mains get the most space.
• Put your strongest dish first or last in a section, where the eye lands, and give a high-margin dish a box or a little more space. These are design practices, not laws: test and check sales after.
• Show prices plainly, aligned after the description rather than in a column that invites price comparison. Keep a consistent format: 13 or 13.00, not both.
• Use one or two fonts, large enough to read in dim light (no smaller than about 10 point on a printed menu).
• Use photos sparingly on print (one per section at most); online, a good photo per dish helps.

The free printable menu maker lays out your sections in US Letter or A4 and exports a print-ready PDF; menu templates give you ready-made designs to start from.

Step 9: What legal information must be on a US menu?

Rules come from the FDA Food Code as adopted by your state, from federal labeling law and from some state laws. Check with your local health department; these are the lines most menus need:

The consumer advisory comes from Oregon's Department of Agriculture fact sheet on the Food Code, which also gives two other allowed reminders and recommends at least 11-point type on handheld menus. If you're a 20+ location chain, read our FDA menu labeling guide. Federal law doesn't require independent restaurants to list allergens on menus, but guests ask; the free allergen chart maker makes a one-page chart for your counter.

Step 10: Print menu or online menu?

You need both, and they should match.

A QR code at the table can open your menu, or a menu people can order from. See what a QR menu is and make a static code free with the menu QR code generator.

How Menuthere helps

• Put the menu online in minutes: upload a photo or PDF of your printed menu and the dishes, prices and sizes are read into your menu for you to check, or add them by hand.
• Allergens and calories on every plan: record the 14 common allergens, calories and a halal mark per dish; customers see them when they open the dish.
• Dishes at set times: a brunch dish shows only on weekends, a lunch special only at lunch, on every plan.
• Other languages: a second name per dish on every plan; a language button that translates the whole menu from Lite ($17 a month).
• 0% commission: customers order and pay from the same menu, on your page or a table QR code.

Your menu, online and orderable, from the same list of dishes.

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