ORIGIN OF MENU

In a restaurant, a menu is a presentation of food and beverage offerings. A menu may be a la

carte – which guests use to choose from a list of options – or table d'hôte, in which case a pre-
established sequence of courses is served.

The first restaurant menus arouse roughly one millennium ago, in China - the only region of the
world at the time where paper was abundant. At this time, many merchants often congregated
together in city centers and had little time or energy to eat during the evening. Because of the
large variation found in Chinese cuisine from different regions, the restaurants could no longer
cater to the local palates, giving rise to the menu.

The word "menu," like much of the terminology of cuisine, is French in origin. It ultimately
derives from Latin "minutus," something made small; in French it came to be applied to a
detailed list or résumé of any kind. The original menus that offered consumers choices were
prepared on a small chalkboard, in French a carte; so foods chosen from a bill of fare are
described as "à la carte," "according to the board."

Menu planning

Purpose of the Menu

Inform guests of items available and price
Inform employees of items to prepare and purchase
MENU is primary control tool for the operation
Menu is critical to communicating and selling items to the customer

Menu Planning Factors: Menu affects, and is affected by, the

Operation’s design
Layout,
Equipment requirements,
Labor needs.
The success of menu planning determines the success of other basic operating activities.

Menu Planning Objectives

Menu must meet or exceed guest’s expectations.
reflect tastes and preferences of guests
Menu must attain marketing objectives.
What guest wants, location, prices, times
must bring guests back for more visits

Factor influencing menu planning

Customer Satisfaction
Management Decisions
Factors Influencing Menu
Planning – Customer Satisfaction
Food preferences/habits
Nutrition
Aesthetic factors
Types of menu
Broadly menus are divided into two branches which may have various subsections more
popularly the French word A la Carte and Table d’ hote are in vogue. The first one means list
of items offered individually priced. A la Carte menu has elaborate number of items giving a
wide choice to the guests whereas the table d' hote or table of the host precisely translated into
English is a list of small number with few courses without any substantial choices this is a
package deal for a budget customer.

The other branches could be a buffet menu which is a menu with wide choice but priced per
head. It comes exactly in midway between A la Carte and Table d' Hote. Flexy choice menu
often have a few variations of Table d' Hote, two or three packages are offered like in banquets,
using choice of any two or any three vegetarian or non-vegetarian dishes with prices slightly
differing from each other. It is also used in case of Indian restaurants offering thalis {Table d'
Hdte) like Janta thali (one sabii, dal, roti), regular thali (two sabzi, dal, rott, salad), deluxe thali
(two sabzi, dal fry, nan/parantha, salad, raita, papad and rice and kheer) may be costing Rs.
100 Rs. 150 Rs. 200 respectively.

In case of an A la Carte the menu is almost commonplace except that it varies from meal to
meal like breakfast, lunch or dinner or two different classes of their own and also depending
upon the restaurant whether it is a coffee shop, ethnic restaurant, discotheque or a night club.
Sometimes in a restaurant both the menus run concurrently, particularly in commercial places
where regulars go for budget menu and casuals go for A la Carte. Table d' Hote on the other
hand has many variations whereas it can be very rigid banquet menu with no choice and large
number of courses (5-7), a meal for a group with a fair number of items in each course 2-3 not
to make harsh for people with allergies and fads. A tea menu for a party with 10-15 items,
somebody might like all, a few may like 2-3. limited buffet with per head rate. Table d'Hote can
be used successfully in canteens, cafeterias commercial restaurants by cleverly changing the
dishes in a cyclic manner so that repetition could not be detected.

Table d’ hote A la carte

It is small menu It is an elaborate menu
It has only 3 to 4 courses It has multiple courses