How to Craft a Great Menu Item Description

Describing your food items could make or break your guests impression of your food. Key words and colourful ideas can be the main enticing factor to get your guests to try new things. If you don’t know how to properly describe your menu items, that’ll change in a moment.

Have a Fun Name

This is the part where you can be really creative. You can use a fun and funky name for the dish. Name it after the chef, the protein that was used, or something that represents the dish accurately. But, make sure to still include what the dish is. If it’s lasagna, make sure the title says it’s lasagna. If it’s fish, that should be somewhere in the title.

Include the Important Ingredients

Make sure you're mentioning the main protein of the dish, any key ingredients that could completely change the flavour of the dish, and anything that commonly causes allergic reactions (shellfish, peanuts, gluten, etc.) in the description. People like to read as little as possible, so make sure the important information is included, but only the important stuff.

Include the “Sell Copy”

The sell copy is the part that entices people. This is typically the flowery wording that makes a part of the dish sound super good. Be careful not to use too much sell copy in one description. Usually including one piece of sell copy in a description is enough to do the trick. Call the potatoes fluffy, the ribs saucy, the toppings fresh, or anything that entices people more.

Add a Place of Origin

If you have fresh farm to table strawberries to offer you guests, mention the name of the farm in the description. Or if your coffee beans are straight from an area of Columbia be sure to be specific with where. This way people will draw a connection with the food, especially if they already have a connection with the origin.

There are so many different menu writing techniques that could fill an entire textbook. As long as people know what is in the dish the job of a description has been completed. Enticing guests to order that particular item takes lots of brainstorming and understanding the audience's mind. There can always be room for improvement. Take a look at your restaurants menu and see where that improvement could be helpful.