If a guide is going to pay a visit, they will want your PR effort to include a copy of your menu. Critics will narrow their choice down in the same manner and are probably even considering their pre-order on the train over.

The menu is the first layer of your sales message, customers will look at this important document several times before buying from you. What does a menu say about you?

1 What ingredients do you use?
2 What is their provenance?
3 Does it talk of relationships?
4 What techniques do you use?
5 Do you declare the price?
6 Any hidden extras?

The menu should set the theme, tell a story and entice the guests into booking, walking through your front door and staying once they are sat down. Ideally each encounter should build a further level of anticipation, with the peak delight happening at the dinner table.

We have talked before about narrative in the menu, but with a fine dining offering, how do you pitch the wording? You could go all the way and publish a tome in French script, you may get accused of being old fashioned or stuffy. The only way to do this is to develop your own style. It’s like any form of writing, it needs to put raw data across into something that the reader understands.