Menus
Dining styles
This is a menu for:
☐a la carte ☐buffet ☐cyclical ☐degustation ☐ethnic ☐set ☐table d’hote ☐seasonal
The organisation’s cuisine style is: ________________________________________________.
Potential dishes
List at least three entrees, three mains and three deserts for this menu. Explain your rationale for selecting each menu item – what are its merits? How would each menu item match the needs of your customer group?
| Name of dish | Rationale/merits | How does the dish meet customer needs? | |
| Entrée 1 | |||
| Entrée 2 | |||
| Entrée 3 | |||
| Main 1 | |||
| Main 2 | |||
| Main 3 | |||
| Desert 1 | |||
| Desert 2 | |||
| Desert 3 |
Balance
Describe how this combination of dishes provides balance to the menu.
Costing
Use Excel, an equivalent spreadsheet package or specialised software package to cost each menu item by:
itemising the components of each dish on the menu
calculating portion yields and costs
pricing the menu items to ensure maximum profitability (use your organisation’s pricing formula).
Don’t forget to attach your costings spreadsheets when you submit your work.
The name of the costing file for this menu is: __________________________________________
Consultation
Discuss your potential dishes with a colleague (for the purposes of this assessment, that might be another person from the group that you work with in your training kitchen). Describe your discussion – what feedback did the person you met with provide? Did you incorporate their feedback and how? If you didn’t take their advice on board, why not?
Finalising the menu
Work through the dishes that you are proposing and assess the cost-effectiveness of each dish. Select the two dishes from each course that provide the highest yields and use those dishes to finalise your menu. List your final six dishes here.
Entrée 1:
Entrée 2:
Main 1:
Main 2:
Desert 1:
Desert 2:
Menu descriptions
Write a menu description for each of your menu items.
| Menu item | Menu description | |
| Entrée 1 | ||
| Entrée 2 | ||
| Main 1 | ||
| Main 2 | ||
| Desert 1 | ||
| Desert 2 |
Describe how the language and style used in your menu descriptions will appeal to your customer base. How is it consistent with the menu style?
Menu formats
Research an appropriate menu format for the service style, cuisine type and menu items that you have proposed for this menu. Provide two examples (you can print or save samples on-line, include hard-copy samples or take photographs).
Explain how the samples are appropriate to the customer group and menu style.
| File/attachment name | Explanation | |
| Sample 1 | ||
| Sample 2 |
Gathering feedback
Gather at least two types of feedback from your customer group about this menu. You must select the two feedback methods from this list:
Feedback types
customer satisfaction discussions with:
customers
employees during the course of each business day
customer surveys
improvements suggested by:
customers
managers
peers
staff
supervisors
suppliers
regular staff meetings that involve menu discussions
seeking staff suggestions for menu items.
Describe how you gathered feedback on this menu. What method did you use? What feedback did you gather? How did you incorporate the feedback? Summarise the changes that you made.