How to Format a Menu: 7 Design Principles for More Sales.

The classic menu lists dishes on the left, prices in a right column. Eye-tracking studies (Kimes, Cornell School of Hotel Administration, 2009) show this triggers price-scanning. Guests skim the right column for the cheapest number — the content on the left becomes secondary.

Better: price right after the dish, no leading dots, e.g. "Spaghetti Carbonara €13.50". This turns price into a detail instead of the deciding factor.

Research note: restaurants that switched to integrated prices saw on average +8% average ticket — and a slight shift toward the higher third of the menu.

Cornell study 2002 (Wansink): dishes with descriptive adjectives sell +27% better than the identical item without description.

• Bad: "Beef tenderloin €28"
• Better: "Charcoal-grilled beef tenderloin with red-wine butter and rosemary potatoes €28"

Important: adjectives must be specific. "Delicious" or "tasty" feel hollow. "Charcoal-grilled", "hand-cut", "from Bavaria", or "baked in salt crust" are concrete and credible.

Classic behavioral economics: if your mains are €14-19 and you add one premium lobster plate at €42, orders for the €17-19 range jump 12-18% (Stanford, 2008).

The mechanism: the expensive anchor makes the middle bracket feel "actually a deal". Important: the anchor itself rarely sells — its job isn't to convert, it's to shift the reference frame.

Classic menu-engineering matrix (Kasavana & Smith, 1982). Classify every dish by popularity × margin:

• Stars (high popularity, high margin): place prominently — marketing-card format, photo, descriptive text
• Plowhorses (high popularity, low margin): keep visually quiet, no photo boost — they sell themselves
• Puzzles (low popularity, high margin): better placement, fresh description — wake the potential
• Dogs (low popularity, low margin): drop from the menu, replace with a daily special

Position matters: eye-tracking shows the top third + the right page of a spread get the most attention. That's where stars + puzzles belong.

A menu with a photo on every dish reads like fast food — even if the photos are gorgeous. Rule of thumb: at most 1-2 photos per page, always on stars or puzzles, never on standard items.

An Iowa study (2014) showed: menus with more than 3 photos per page were perceived as a tier lower in price class than text-only menus with the same content. Translation: you can charge less without anyone noticing.

Exception: cafés and pizzerias — visual preview is industry standard there and gets expected.

On a two-page spread, eyes follow: top right → top left → bottom right → bottom left. On a single page: top third first, bottom last.

Consequence: what you actually want to sell belongs top right. The bottom third is the diaspora — that's where sides, optional add-ons and small print go.

Practical: if your star dish lives in the bottom third, move it. Position alone gets 10-20% more orders without changing anything else.

Choice-fatigue research (Iyengar/Lepper, Columbia, 2000) shows: over 12 options, order rate drops because guests get overwhelmed and either pick the simplest item or nothing at all.

Sweet spot for restaurants: 5-7 mains on the menu, 2-3 daily specials separately. Cafés/bistros: 8-12 items across categories. Pizzerias: 10-15 (industry standard).

Daily specials are the secret weapon: they give you variety without bloating the menu. With a digital QR menu (see QR menu guide) you change the daily special live, no reprinting.