Design a restaurant menu in your browser and download a print-ready PDF. Already have a printed menu? Take a photo of it and the dishes, descriptions and prices are read straight off the page, so updating prices takes minutes instead of an afternoon of retyping.
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A4, A5 and DL sizes for UK printers
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The 14 named allergens must be declared for non-prepacked food
Prices displayed
Inclusive of VAT, with any service charge stated up front
VAT on restaurant food
20% standard rate on catering and hot takeaway
Restaurant Menu Templates
Pick a layout, type in your dishes and prices, and download a print-ready PDF. Every template is editable in your browser — there is nothing to install and no sign-up.
How to make a restaurant menu that prints properly
Most menus are not designed from scratch. They are inherited: a file someone made years ago, edited until the spacing stopped making sense, then reprinted every time a supplier price moved. The quickest way to a menu you can actually maintain is to start from the one already on your tables, get the dishes and prices into a form you can edit, and then choose a layout that suits the size of sheet you intend to print.
This guide covers the practical decisions in that order: capturing what you already have, picking a paper size before you pick a design, writing descriptions that earn their space, marking allergens without redesigning anything, and handing a file to a printer that comes back looking like what you saw on screen.
Start from the menu you already have
If you already print a menu, photograph it rather than retyping it. Lay it flat, fill the frame, and shoot in even light — a window at midday is better than a ceiling light directly overhead, which throws a shadow down the middle of a folded card. The dish names, descriptions and prices are read off the photo and turned into an editable list, which you then correct.
Expect to correct something. Text recognition is very good on printed type and much weaker on handwriting, heavy script faces and text over photographs. Rows the scanner was unsure about are flagged, and each one shows the slice of your own photo it came from, so checking a price is a glance rather than a hunt. A menu of forty dishes usually takes a couple of minutes to verify.
Shoot one page at a time; add further pages afterwards and they append to the same menu.
Prices in the right-hand column read most reliably, because that is how nearly every printed menu is set.
If a photo produces almost nothing, the menu is probably too stylised to read — start from a template instead and type the dishes.
Decide the size before you choose a design
Paper size drives everything else. A4 holds roughly forty short lines in one column, or twice that in two; A5 suits a single-course card or a dessert list; DL, the tall narrow strip, is what sits on a table beside the salt as a drinks or specials card. Choosing the sheet first means you are picking a layout that fits, rather than shrinking type at the end to force an extra dish on.
A long list is easier to read in two columns than in one long ladder, but only if the price column stays narrow and aligned. Two ragged columns are harder to scan than one tidy one. If you find yourself below about nine point on the dish names, you need the next size up or one fewer section, not smaller type.
Write descriptions that earn the space
A description exists to answer the question the dish name raises. If the name already answers it, leave the description out; blank space costs nothing and makes the page easier to read. Where a description helps, name the two or three things a guest actually wants to know — the cut, the accompaniment, the heat — and stop.
Keep the voice consistent down the page. A menu where three dishes are lyrical and the rest are bare reads as unfinished. If you cannot write a useful line for every dish in a section, write none of them and let the names carry it.
Mark allergens without redesigning the menu
Allergen information for food that is not pre-packed is required, and the practical convention is a small superscript number after the dish name keyed to a short legend at the foot of the last page. That is far less disruptive to a layout than a column of icons, and it survives a reprint when one recipe changes.
Whichever way you present it, the information has to be reliable and easy for a guest to get to. A printed key plus a clear line telling guests to ask staff about allergens is the common arrangement; the number of dishes you can fit on a page should never be the reason the key gets dropped.
Getting it printed
Print shops want a PDF with real text and real page dimensions. A menu exported as a flat image looks acceptable on a phone and disappointing at A4, because the type has been resampled rather than drawn — thin strokes go furry and small text loses its edges. A PDF whose text you can select in a reader is a PDF a printer can output cleanly at any size.
For in-house printing, ordinary office paper is fine for a specials card you will replace next week. For a menu that lives on a table, printers usually suggest something in the 250 to 400gsm range, often laminated; takeaway leaflets are lighter, commonly 130 to 150gsm. Ask for a single proof before a long run — cheaper than discovering the accent colour prints muddier than it looked on screen.
Menu maker questions
Menu rules in the UK
Allergen information is required for non-prepacked food
Food served without packaging — a plated meal, a takeaway portion, a sandwich made to order — must be accompanied by information about the fourteen named allergens. The law does not dictate a single format: the information can sit on the menu, on a board, or be given by staff provided the menu clearly signposts that it is available.
Food Standards Agency guidance encourages providing it in writing so a guest does not have to ask. The practical result on a printed menu is a numbered key: a superscript figure beside each dish and a legend at the foot of the last page.
Prices must include VAT and be visible before ordering
Prices shown to customers must be inclusive of VAT, and restaurants are expected to display them so guests can see them before they order — in practice, a price list at or near the entrance as well as on the menu itself. If you levy a compulsory service charge, it needs to be clear up front rather than appearing only on the bill.
Eat-in and hot takeaway are standard-rated; cold takeaway is not
All catering, whether the food is hot or cold, is standard-rated at 20% when eaten in. Hot takeaway food is standard-rated too. Cold takeaway food is zero-rated, apart from a list of standard-rated exceptions such as confectionery, crisps and soft drinks.
This is why a takeaway menu showing a different price for eat-in and takeaway is ordinary UK practice rather than a mistake, and it is worth deciding which prices your printed menu is quoting before you design it.
Rates summarised from HMRC VAT Notice 709/1; check the notice for the full list of standard-rated exceptions before pricing.
A4 flat or folded to A5 is the standard main-menu format, with A5 used for shorter single-course cards and DL for narrow table cards. Dine-in menus are typically printed on heavier stock, often around 250 to 400gsm and frequently laminated, while takeaway leaflets are lighter at roughly 130 to 150gsm.
Stock weights are common trade practice rather than a standard; your printer may recommend otherwise.
