Menu Balance

Chef Richard Shepherd got to know a thing or two about menus during his three and half decades of running Langan’s Brasserie in London. What he discovered was priceless and had more to do with psychology than menu writing.

“There are two important things to remember about menus,” Shepherd once told me writes Chandos Elletson, “First, guests will order the things they recognise and second they almost invariably choose from the bottom of the starters and the top of the main courses.”

I had to think about that carefully. The original Langan’s menu was very French with French dish names but after a certain date the language gradually changed to English. What was once Hors D’Oeuvres and Plats du Jour became Starters and Main Courses. It was during this changeover period that Shepherd started to see that arcane and obscure French dishes, known and loved by guests who knew the restaurant, sold better if they were translated — newer customers were less familiar with the old French repertoire.