When people hear that I’m a chef and food critic, they love to ask, “So what do you order?” It’s the wrong first question. The real question should be: what do you see when you read a restaurant menu, before you order anything at all?
What I see when I read a restaurant menu is not romance or mood. I see pressure points, habits, fear, ego and sometimes genuine confidence. A menu is an X-ray of a kitchen. Before I commit to a single dish, I’m already reading how the line is going to feel at 8:30 p.m. on a full Saturday.
If you haven’t read them yet, this piece sits right on top of two other articles: Why Most Restaurant Reviews Are Useless and How to Read a Restaurant Menu Like a Chef. Think of this as the live demo.
Before I Even Open the Menu
What I see when I read a restaurant menu actually starts before I open it. I’m already collecting context: what time it is, how full the room is, how many staff are on the floor, whether the kitchen looks calm or like it’s already drowning.
Then I pick up the menu itself. Is it a physical menu, a QR code, a chalkboard of specials? Is it weirdly heavy and overdesigned, or cheap and falling apart? None of this decides whether the food is good, but it tells me what the restaurant thinks is important to signal first.
Learning what to see when you read a restaurant menu like this isn’t about being snobbish. It’s about getting honest information from something that’s trying to sell you a story as much as it’s trying to feed you.
The First Scan: Sections, Size and Panic
The first scan is quick. Starters, mains, sides, desserts. Maybe a tasting menu. Maybe a “from the grill” section. I’m looking for three things: size, focus and panic.
If the menu is huge – burgers, sushi, pizza, tacos, curry, poke – I assume fear. This place is trying to be everything to everyone. What I see when I read a restaurant menu like that is a kitchen that probably has a freezer big enough to nap in and a prep list that nobody truly controls.
If the menu is tiny but weirdly unfocused – a steak here, a ceviche there, one token pasta, a random ramen – I start wondering if this is a chef who can’t edit themselves or a team that hasn’t decided what it wants to be.
A focused menu with a clear shape is a good sign. A few starters, a few mains, a couple of things from the grill, sides that sound like someone actually tasted them. That’s usually a kitchen that knows what it can execute when the tickets won’t stop printing.
Starters: Where the Kitchen Starts Talking
Starters are the first real test. Most guests think of them as warm-up acts. I think of them as the kitchen’s handshake. What I see when I read a restaurant menu in the starters section is how the kitchen thinks about rhythm and risk.
I look for:
- One loud, safe thing. Wings, fries, some kind of “crispy something with aioli”. Fine. It keeps the bar crowd happy and the tickets moving.
- One plate that could be quietly brilliant. A simple crudo, a seasonal vegetable dish that isn’t just “grilled and drizzled”, a tartare that doesn’t read like a 2010 photocopy.
- Portion games. If starters are priced and described like mains, I expect the kitchen is trying to drag you into ordering “a few plates to share” as a revenue tactic more than a hospitality choice.
If every starter reads like it was designed for Instagram, I expect shallow cooking. If there’s at least one starter that sounds almost boring on paper but has some thought underneath – good product, clean idea, real restraint – that’s the one I’m mentally circling.
Mains: What the Kitchen Is Really Betting On
By the time I get to the mains, I already have a feel for how honest the menu is. What I see when I read a restaurant menu here is where the kitchen has decided to put its weight. This is where you feel the money, the stress and the ambition.
I’m looking at:
- The backbone dish. There’s usually one main that everything else orbits around – a roast chicken, a steak, a piece of fish, a braise. If that looks timid or confused, I lower my expectations.
- The vegetarian main. Is it a real dish or a side with a poached egg thrown on top? What I see here when I read the menu tells me a lot about whether this kitchen actually cares about cooking vegetables.
- Repetition. If I see the same sauce or garnish popping up on half the mains, I assume the kitchen is leaning on one trick and hoping you won’t notice.
- Pricing logic. I’m not looking for cheap. I’m looking for coherence. If the burger is almost as expensive as the steak but clearly cheaper to make, I start wondering who this menu is written for.
A strong mains section feels like a band that knows its set list. A weak one feels like a playlist someone panicked through the night before service.
Specials and “Chef’s Recommendations”
Specials are where people either get the best night of their week or accidentally order the dish that exists to get rid of inventory. What I see when I read a restaurant menu and its specials board is how honestly the kitchen handles surplus, season and ego.
If the specials are:
- All over the place. A random fish, a random pasta, a random steak, none of which relate to the printed menu, I suspect this is either chaos or someone playing without boundaries.
- Suspiciously sauce-heavy. Specials drowned in cream, cheese or reductions make me wonder what they’re hiding underneath.
- Too many. If there are almost as many specials as dishes on the actual menu, I assume the restaurant doesn’t really know what its own menu is.
A good special feels like a smart extension of the menu, not a desperate appendage. It uses something in season, something the kitchen is excited about, or something they got a great product deal on – without turning the guest into a waste-management solution.
What I Actually End Up Ordering (and Why)
So after all this, what do I actually order? This is where what I see when I read a restaurant menu stops being theory and becomes a plate on the table.
I’ll usually choose:
- One dish the restaurant clearly built its identity around. The thing they’d be embarrassed to get wrong. If that dish is weak, the whole story falls apart.
- One dish that could go wrong technically. Properly cooked fish, a simple pasta, a roast chicken with nothing to hide behind. If they nail this, I trust the rest of the kitchen.
- One thing that tells me how they treat vegetables and sides. A vegetable starter, a side dish, or a main that isn’t built around an expensive protein. This is where a lot of kitchens quietly reveal their standards.
I’m not trying to “catch them out”. I’m trying to see the restaurant on its own terms. What I see when I read a restaurant menu and then decide what to order is not some secret master code. It’s just years of cooking and paying attention to where places choose to care and where they choose to coast.
You don’t need to think like a critic to use any of this. If you start noticing structure, repetition, pricing and how many dishes feel truly alive, you’re already ahead of most people in the room. And you’ll waste far fewer nights on lazy menus pretending to be something they’re not.
If you ever compare what you see on a menu with how places are framed in big lists and awards, like the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, you’ll start to notice how different the marketing story can be from the reality of what a kitchen actually has to execute every night.
If you run a restaurant or hotel and want someone who will actually read your menu before they read your press release, you can contact me here. If you’re a guest who just wants to eat better, start by paying attention to what you see when you read the menu, before you let anyone else tell you what’s good.