The Secrets Hidden on Restaurant Menus

By Ye Qingqing

Picture an exquisite,leather-bound menu placed in front of you at a restaurant. Inside, the pages bear a tightly printed script and inviting pictures, and your eyes are drawn to a couple of items whose names are embellished with adjective- filled descriptions.Then you turn to the waiter and order your food.

A delicious meal is now on its way, but what has led you to choose the food you ate? Was it simply because you liked the dish you ordered or did something else influence your decision? You may not realize it, but the menu probably played a great role in your decision-making. Apart from the price, there are some other elements on a menu that can unconsciously nudge you towards certain choices.

Strategic Fonts

Different fonts will summon different subjective feelings. For example, there is the elegant Italic typeface, the powerful boldface,the relaxing regular script, and the exhilarating round font.Font choice can convey more information than the words themselves.

Italics are often used by top-grade restaurants, as they make people feel the elegant atmosphere of the restaurant.This way, the customer believes they will get superb service and they are also mentally prone to accept the food prices.

But using elaborate fonts that are hard to read could also have another effect—it could alter how the food itself tastes. Consumers often associate rounder typefaces with sweeter tastes, while angular fonts tend to convey a salty or bitter experience. A study conducted by researchers in Switzerland found that a wine labeled with a difficult-to-read script was liked more by drinkers than the same wine carrying a simpler typeface.

一本表皮为皮革制成、装帧精美的菜单摆在你面前。内页上字体紧凑，图片诱人，你被一些有长串形容词的菜名吸引。随后，你打个手势，叫来服务员：点菜。

美味的饭菜即将上桌，但是，你怎样选择要吃的食物呢？仅仅是因为你喜欢吃这道菜，还是其他一些事情影响了你的决定？你可能还没有意识到，菜单也在发挥巨大作用。不仅菜品的价格会影响你点哪个菜，菜单上还有一些你可能没能察觉到的地方，悄无声息地左右着你的选择。

字体的策略

不同的字体会带给人不同的主观感觉，宋体秀美，黑体大气，楷体给人以轻松感，幼圆体给人以愉悦感。这些字体用在菜单上，还可以传递更多信息。

比如，斜体字通常会被高档餐厅采用，它让顾客感觉到餐厅格调优雅，认为这家餐厅会提供一流的服务，心理上顾客也易接受它们的价格。

如果采用一些让人很难辨认的精致字体，会产生另一种效果，它可以改变食物本身的口味。消费者经常将圆形字体与甜味联系在一起，角形字体会传达食物会更咸或更苦的信息。瑞士专家发现，比起字体简单的葡萄酒，那些标有复杂文字的葡萄酒，更被认可。

字体的颜色也会对顾客产生影响。某些颜色，比如绿色，经常被用来向你暗示食物是健康的新鲜的，橙色则被认为是刺激食欲的颜色；红色会让人感觉时间紧促，也许是想把你的注意力尽快吸引到厨师最想要你点的菜上，那些菜才有更大的利润空间。

花哨的菜名

叫花鸡、美极鸭下巴、泰式打抛猪肉，为什么这些菜会取这么有趣的名字呢？其实道理很简单，如果你取了个简单的菜名，如“贵州牛排”，要价500元，会让人感到物有不值，如果你用一个“阿伯丁安格斯牛排”，会显得更诱人、更高档吧。

Besides, the font colors can also have an impact on the customers.Certain colors like green are often used to imply the food is healthy and fresh, while orange is thought to stimulate the appetite, and red suggests a sense of urgency and perhaps draws attention to dishes the chef most wants you to order—probably because they have the biggest pro fit margin.

Fancy Names

Beggar’s Chicken, Magic Duck Chin, Pad Ka-Prao (Thai Basil with Minced Pork)… Why do these dishes have such interesting names? Actually, the answer is very simple. After all, an“Aberdeen Angus steak with thick-cut rosemary fries” sounds much more appetizing than simply “Guizhou Steak,” doesn’t it? If the “Guizhou Steak” is priced at 500 yuan, people will feel that it is not worth it.

Scientists at Stanford University found that vegetables that have been given funny descriptions—such as “dynamite chili,” “sweet sizzling green beans,” and “chopped shallots”—on a cafeteria menu were picked 23% more often because it made them sound more exciting and flavorful. When our brain is processing written information,it also triggers our senses of touch and taste, so we may feel as if we have smelled the aromas, and our appetite is increased.

Attaching some provenance or the maker’s identity to the names of dishes is also an effective strategy. For instance,“Grandma ’s home-baked zucchini cookies” sound much more appealing than “courgette biscuits,” as the former name implies the authenticity of the food. Naming dishes with words that mimic the mouth movements of eating will arouse the taste response, which can make our mouths water. Nostalgic labels such as “time-honored” or“handmade” will resonate with our innermost feelings.

Also, restaurants tend to use long-winded descriptions to make a dish seem like a better value for the money, so people will be willing to pay for it. The British retailer Marks & Spencer often uses long descriptions in the commercials to convey the impression of the quality of its products. “This is not just a pudding,” one advert declared.“This is a melt in the middle,Belgian chocolate pudding served with extra thick Channel Island cream.” Thanks to the wonderful pitch, its sales soared by an astonishing 3,500%.

Of course, the restaurant has to guarantee the authenticity of the food description. For example,if a dish called “Green Dragon Crossing the Sea” is nothing but a normal soup with green shallots,the customers may feel duped and never want to come back.

Pricing Strategy

If you go shopping often, you may encounter interesting phenomena on pricing. Sellers always like to put a “9” behind the decimal point, such as 12.99 and 14.99.Although there is only one cent difference between 12.99 and 13, customers are more likely to accept the former price, as if it is a real bargain.

斯坦福大学的科学家发现，在一个自助餐厅，如果蔬菜名的前面有一些有趣的描述，如“炸药辣椒”“甜铁板绿豆”“碎葱”，会多出23%的销售额。这些名字会让人眼前一亮，而大脑在处理文字信息时，也会触发触觉和味觉，让你似乎闻到香味，进而增加食欲。

将一些食品的起源地、制作者加在食品前，比如，“奶奶家烤的西葫芦饼干”听起来比“小胡瓜饼干”更有吸引力，它们暗示了食品的权威性；用模拟吃饭声音的拟声词来形容一道菜，会激发味觉反应，让你口水直流；用怀旧的标签，如“老字号”“手工制作”，则会激起你的情怀。

商家还会用很长的一段文字来描述，使得这道菜看上去物有所值，让人们乐意掏腰包。英国零售商玛莎百货经常在广告中使用长篇叙述，让潜在顾客对其食品产生好的联想。它的布丁广告是这样打的：“这不仅仅是一个布丁，夹心处融化的是比利时巧克力配上英吉利海峡醇香奶油。”就因为这个广告，公司的布丁销售增长了3500%。

当然，商家必须得保证菜品信息的真实性，否则弄巧成拙。比如，你为一盘菜取了很好听的名字——“青龙过海”，假如只是一碗普通的汤里面加了一根葱，消费者初次上当，下次就不会再光顾了。

定价策略

如果你经常购物，会发现一个有趣的现象：商品定价经常出现尾部为9的情况，如12.99、14.99。尽管12.99元与13元仅相差1分钱，可是你会更愿意接受前者，觉得自己捡了大便宜。

在设计菜品价格上，人们也会选择这样的策略。最常见的是将价格降低3分，比如将一道打折菜的价格设定为15.97元。

餐厅还有另一个花招，也许你在拿到菜单时并没有察觉到，那就是很少有哪个商家在价格后标上“元”。这个汉字会提醒你，你正在花钱，而花钱会让人心疼。

缺位的图片

美食，怎能少了图片来增色呢？附上图片，可以引起人的直观感受。不过如果你经常在外面吃饭，就会发现那些便宜的快餐往往会配上更多的图片，而更高档的餐厅，菜单上图片出现得并不多。

在菜名旁边附上图片，在点的菜上桌之前，你的大脑已经构想出食物的味道，而这时如果食物并不像你想象的那么好，你就会感到失落。

图片与食物不符，是一个非常常见的问题。如果你吃过麦当劳的汉堡包，就会发现汉堡包个头比图片小很多，颜色也没那么鲜艳，奶酪可能溅出来。好在价格不贵，你也不会过于计较。而在高档餐厅，如果出现这样的情况，由于成本高昂，消费者就不会去第二次。

菜单里的门道很多，它可以带动餐厅的销售额，所以在欧美国家，诞生一个新的产业——菜单工程。从业者致力于设计好的菜单，向顾客传达特定信息，鼓励他们花费更多，并且乐意当回头客。像一个每天人流量达到百万的大型连锁餐厅，菜单工程师会对菜单上的所有食物进行测试，可能需要长达18个月才能更新出一份菜单。

你下次点菜，看到一份菜单时，会不会惊讶于它竟然藏了这么多门道？

（摘自《大科技》2018年第3期）

When it comes to food pricing in a restaurant, owners often adopt the same strategy. For example, they would price a discounted dish 3.97 yuan.

Besides, restaurants have another trick, which you may not notice when you get a menu—that is, dropping the currency signs altogether. This sign is a pain point that reminds the diner that they are spending money.

The Missing Pictures

How could images of appealing foods ever be missing from a menu? With pictures attached,customers can get a direct feeling of the food. People who always dine out will realize that pictures of food tend to appear more on menus of cheaper fast food stores and are rarely seen on the menus of fancy restaurants.

The problem with attaching a picture besides the name of a dish is that before the meal is served on your table, your brain has already“tasted” the food when it sees a picture, so when the food comes out and is not quite as good as you imagined, it could upset you.

It is a common problem that the food doesn’t come out looking as good as it does in the pictures. Anyone who has eaten at McDonald’s will find that the large-sized burger with oozing cheese and shining meat juices on the menus are rarely reflected in the real burger that is served. Fast food is cheap, so very few people will make a fuss about it. But in top-grade restaurants, where the food is usually expensive,consumers will never want to come back again if that happens.

There are so many tricks hidden on a menu, which can help boost sales of a restaurant,so in European and American countries, there is now an entire industry known as “menu engineering,” dedicated to designing menus that convey certain messages to customers,encouraging them to spend more and come back again. For a large chain restaurant that might have one million customers per day,it can take up to 18 months for a menu engineer to update a menu,as he needs to test every food before designing.

So, will you be aware of the tricks on a menu next time you order?