15 Eye-Catching Restaurant Menu Designs

Catching the eyes of patrons walking into your restaurant keeps them engaged and focused on having a great time. People don’t just go to a restaurant to eat. They go there to socialize. They go there for someone else to do the dishes. They go to try something they’ve never tried before. They go for the mood and the ambiance. A unique restaurant menu design adds to the ambiance. It also tells new diners what your restaurant is all about.

Getting people to choose your restaurant over other dining options means standing out from the rest. Given choosing something from the menu is the precursor to enjoying a delicious meal, a great design can go a long way.

At IronMonk, we’ve searched far and wide for the best designs. They don’t just look cool. They serve a purpose. To get people ordering food and inspire them to have a great time.

Restaurant Menu Design Considerations

Design, style, look and feel can go a long way to making a menu look awesome, but you still have to have a method to the madness. A great menu guides the customer to the right meal choice for them with the following considerations in mind:

• Understand the customer’s desires: What is it that triggers your ideal visitor to sit down and dine at your restaurant?
• Consider geography: How far is your target customer willing to drive just to show up and enjoy a meal? Are you going for an upscale dining vibe that people drive far and wide to experience? Or are you a chain restaurant with several locations in a region?
• Your target demographic: how old is your ideal customer? What is their occupation? How much money do they make? What do they like and dislike? Basically, who is your ideal customer?
• Social networking: this is in just about social media. You need to understand who your target audience is associates with socially both online and off-line. Also, what are their behaviours like? How do they spend their time? What do they like to do?
• Make sure to use photos sparingly and make them beautiful.
• Outline menu items in boxes to highlight them.
• Skip using dollar signs.

With these marketing and design tips in mind, let’s look at the menus, shall we?

1. The Modern Food Menu

This modern look does both photo and design really well. Look at the wonderful meal displayed as the centerpiece on the front cover of the menu. The typeface and graphics on the inside add a nice touch and the white font on a black background makes everything easy to read.

2. The Comfy Food Brunch Menu

No dollar signs on this menu. It has great contrasting colours, particularly the red on white. The style is obviously laid back. This one makes for a great brunch or bar menu. The names of the food items are simple and direct. Definitely preaches more of a homestyle vibe to cuisine.

3. Food Unfolded

This menu is great for a bar that offers a limited selection of appetizers, drinks and deserts. The red, black and white color scheme fits the design perfectly and the fact that the menu folds and unfolds makes it easy to take a look at push it to the side when you’re done with it. The fold out concept is unique and it just works!

4. The Cafe Vibe

This cafe style menu is simple and highlights all of the different food and beverage options well. The images work because they blend in with the colors of the menu. Not typical for most menus, but whoever the graphic designer was on this project did a good job.

5. The Fast Food Menu

Alright, so this menu breaks the dollar sign rule, but fast food joints can do that, if only for the simple fact that fast food is always cheap. Part of the reason it’s called fast food. This one follows a chalkboard-like theme and the graphics look like memes. Definitely up to date with the times.

6. The Top Down View Menu

Everyone is subconsciously familiar with a top down view of their food. It’s the view professional and celebrity chefs show off on all of those cooking shows that make your mouthwater. This menu does a great job of using images in an absolutely perfect way. The font used is very much Japanese inspired. The descriptions are simple, yet enticing.

7. The Drink and Dessert Menu

This menu shows off a very colorful, fun loving and tropical vibe. Exactly the way you want to feel when enjoying a mojito or margarita. The bold typeface makes the menu items clear, the pictures show off the colors without being invasive. This one also makes space for promoting something everyone loves. Happy Hour!

8. Food Coming to Life

If a picture tells a thousand words, this menu tells a complete story. Just one look at this menu and you know exactly what this restaurant is about. The descriptions are short, and they’re not even written in English, but you can let your eyes tell your stomach what you want to eat.

9. The Bar and Bistro Menu

This menu really keeps it simple. Definitely a great design for a bar or pub. No pictures, simple descriptions, clear text that stands out and a classic cardboard-like background.

10. Cardboard Re-Imagined

11. Cool Headings

Clear headings, calls to action, simple yellow highlights and great descriptions. Patrons know exactly what they’re getting here. No need for any pictures here. This menu is straight to the point.

12. Picturesque Menu

This menu does an incredible job of incorporating photos while separating the descriptions and still sticking to a definitive color scheme. The way the edges of each photo are highlighted by the edges of the graphics is just awesome.

13 Black and White Done Right

Here’s another menu that takes advantage of simplicity. Again, the headings break everything down nicely and they’re easy to read. The lines clearly highlight every section of the menu and the descriptions are right to the point.

14. Everything in One Menu

This one has it all. A graphic in the top corner. Simple font. Nice pictures and everything fits on one page. The arrows draw the eyes of hungry people ready to eat. A cool design that keeps things fun.

15. A Burger’s Delight Menu

This design keeps all the pricing simple but offers a great black & white, and color-filled version. Different kinds of text make the design playful and light, but everything is clearly legible. This menu is simplicity and detail all in one.

Enticing Restaurant Designs Equal Profits

A lot of people fantasize about owning a restaurant someday, but at the end of the day, it takes more than daydreaming to make it happen. Hiring a good graphic designer, having a solid search engine optimization and social media strategy and ultimately knowing your customer well can all help make the difference.