Monday, December 14, 2009
Restaurants The art of menu design
Posted by Cliff Bostock @cliffbostock on Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 9:27 PM
If you've been to Balthazar in New York, you'll find the new Bistro Niko similar in many ways -- including the menu's design.
Check out this link, from New York Magazine, which recently printed an excerpt from William Poundstone's Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value, to be published in January. A sample of his analysis of menu design:
1. The Upper Right-Hand CornerThat’s the prime spot where diners’ eyes automatically go first. Balthazar uses it to highlight a tasteful, expensive pile of seafood. Generally, pictures of food are powerful motivators but also menu taboos—mostly because they’re used extensively in lowbrow chains like Chili’s and Applebee’s. This illustration “is as far as a restaurant of this caliber can go, and it’s used to draw attention to two of the most expensive orders,” Poundstone says.
2. The Anchor
The main role of that $115 platter—the only three-digit thing on the menu—is to make everything else near it look like a relative bargain, Poundstone says.
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