A restaurant menu is the key player in many aspects of the business. It is the only chance the chef gets to communicate with the customer before they decide to order at that establishment, and for that reason it needs to convey the style, the favorite dishes, the quality of the food and the personality that created all of it.From there, it serves as a hook to get people through the door. People will always relate the food they see or read on the menu to what they actually receive. The same apply with a shiny presence online with the resturents theme. What NOT to put on a Menu Before we outline the things to make a menu good, it’s important to outline why we are leaving things out and the reasons behind those choices: Menu Pictures Thankfully, this is dying for e.g in the UK, however, restaurant menus that haven’t had a menu revamp in the last three or four years (we’ll get to that later) and most European holiday locations, there are pictures of lots of the meals, all dished up on the plate.This is done in good faith, restaurant owners want their customers to see what they’re getting, or what it is, if they don’t know.The problem is that the photos rarely do the food justice- I’m excluding fast food here, that’s always bad- and tend to look tacky and artificial, which only gets worse when you try to edit the shots. While a lot of pictures are bad, there are some exceptions, where few and select photos are used.A good example of this is Pizza Express’ latest menu, which uses a couple of photos to add contrast to the page. Too many items This is seen often in oriental and chain restaurants.Again, this is done with good intentions.The restaurant is trying to say to the customer ‘LOOK, WE CAN COOK YOU ANYTHING YOU WANT, EVER!’ However, this actually says ‘we do fifty meals, but we can’t do a single one well.’ Customers want to know that you take care in preparing each dish and that you’re using fresh ingredients for everything.It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that you must be using frozan to cook the huge range of things on the menu.Also, have in mind that customers are using restaurents app to find you and can make a review your business.Kissmetrics did an interesting article giving a more detailed opinion on how too many choices can damage you sales.