Some detail about ingredients and preparation techniques are desirable, but it's easy to overdo.
Good menu design is a subject that's been the source of seemingly endless debate in the restaurant industry. The controversy is multi-faceted, covering everything from typefaces and word choice to the actual number of items the menu describes.
It's certainly true that most of us can be indecisive, even downright conflicted, when confronted with the typical restaurant bill of fare, since there can be too many choices to make and too little time in which to decide.
Things only get more difficult when the menu additionally incorporates detailed ingredient descriptions, complete with arcane terms and exotic place names, both of which might well require decoding.
Researchers in the United Kingdom recently undertook an exploration of the menu variety question.
Professor John Edwards at Bournemouth University in Bournemouth, UK recently published research that attempted to identify the ideal number of items consumers wanted to see on a restaurant menu.
In fast food and casual dining situations, Edwards's research suggests, restaurant patrons are looking for about six choices in each general menu category.
Fine dining patrons, he found, prefer about seven starters, 10 or so entrees, and a half-dozen desserts from which to pick.
More and study participants claimed they became confused; fewer, and they felt the restaurant offered too limited a selection.
Individual menu item copy also should be simplified. Some detail about ingredients and preparation techniques are desirable, but it's easy to overdo. The best menus, it seems, err slightly on the side of simplification.
Of course complicated menus also raise serious production issues. Unless the kitchen's repertoire is carefully structured to use relatively few ingredients yet prepare a large number of dishes, it's easy for a dining establishment, by promoting its too-long repertoire, to build in operational inefficiencies, create product quality issues, and communicate to consumers a poorly focused brand image.
Hugh Robert is a faculty member in Holyoke Community College's hospitality and culinary arts program and has over 35 years of restaurant and educational experience. Please send items of interest to Off the Menu at the Republican, P.O. Box 2350, Springfield, MA 01102; Robert can also be reached at OffTheMenuGuy@aol.com