Great expectations

Humayun Hussain looks at getting the language just right on your menu

When you present your customers with the menu, the idea is to tempt and tantalise them into ordering food. So the language you use in describing the dishes is crucial.

But no matter what you say on the menu, the experience diners will take away with them will be about the food eaten at your pub.

So licensees should be careful not to get too descriptive or flowery in their dish descriptions. The more you exaggerate, the less the chances are of a dish meeting the customer's expectations. At chef Aaron Craze's pub the Cock Inn in Beazley End, Essex, the menu is descriptive but without being too flowery. Descriptions include Prior's Hall Farm ham, eggs and hand cut chips and "Catch of the day" with minted peas and rosemary salted chips.

The current trend in menu language is minimalist and for factual dish descriptions. Terms like "on a bed of", "resting on", "embellished with", "served on" and "drizzled with" are out.

"The menu is the mediator between the chef and the customer," says Simon Bonwick, head chef of the Black Boys Inn, in Hurley, Berkshire. "At the same time, my policy, when it comes to menu language, is never to consider the customer to be naïve. I very much guard against pompous language and creating an unnecessary mystique around a dish, because that merely amounts to culinary snobbery."

It seems menu wording has evolved with styles of cooking. As food has gradually become simpler, albeit featuring good ingredients and fresh flavouring, dish descriptions have gone hand in hand with this evolution.

"A dish should be written up as it is, rather than trying to enhance its merits with flamboyant words," says Blair MaCann, head chef of the Garrison, in London's Bermondsey. The most important aspects of the kind of language used in writing up dishes is the style of cooking - this can include, for instance, whether a dish has been braised, roasted or even grilled - and the origins of the main ingredient.

At the newly-opened Ginger Pig in Hove, East Sussex, style of cooking is embraced in menu descriptions. Dish descriptions include slow roasted Boyton Farm pork belly, grilled tuna and steak tartare with red endive salad.

Providing information on produce origins is particularly important because there is an increasing interest in provenance. MaCann says: "Some of my dishes are written up as 'Dorset cockles & linguini, chervil, chilli and white wine' or 'braised Orkney pork belly, fennel & bell pepper gravy, mash'."

Peter Wright, executive chef of Geronimo Inns, agrees that the most important menu description is how the dish is cooked. He says: "One of our current menus has dishes which read 'poached Scottish salmon, hollandaise sauce', 'slow roasted duck leg, merlot juices', or 'char-grilled 21-day-hung rump steak, peppercorn sauce'. The simple cooking descriptions are there to tempt the customers."

David Hunt, chef/owner of the Alma, Chelms-ford, Essex, says leaving something to the imag-

ination of the customer can be a good thing. One of the pub's dishes is written up as chump of lamb with spring vegetables and cocotte pota-

toes. David says: "If a customer wants to order that dish, but is curious as to how the lamb has been cooked then he is quite welcome to ask the staff. This is why staff training is always important, because they should be able to answer any questions that customers may have.

"It is down to the skill of the chef to be able to make something taste good, present the dish well without getting too precious and leave the rest for the customer to decipher and enjoy. The menu is there to convey what dishes the pub is offering. It's not there to be a recipe book."

Peter Wright agrees that staff should be able to explain any menu unknowns to customers. "I'm a great believer in under-selling," he says, "and over-delivering. It's vitally important that staff, who are effectively the sales people on the pub floor, be able to pinpoint the menu's strong points to customers. If a customer is unhappy and finds that there is a discrepancy in what the menu states and what the actual dish is like, then he has a right to call out the chef and speak to him directly."

Short, sharp menu descriptions is the approach to menu writing at Gordon Ramsay's new pub the Narrow in Limehouse, London. Dish descriptions include boiled salt beef and carrots, grilled Dorset mackerel with potato salad and gypsy tart.

While it may be tricky to balance writing a menu that is attractive to the customer's eye with making it distinctive from everyone else's efforts, the key is to keep the wording concise and factual.

But be careful not to take menu minimalism to the extreme. Simon Bonwick says: "If a menu states there is a dish of 'salmon ballontine, crème fraîche', which is about as minimal as you can get then you better make sure that the staff know exactly how much crème fraîche the customer is getting with the salmon in case he needs to know. If a dish is accompanied by the likes of swede and parsnip, which I like to use, then the description shouldn't be any more than 'winter vegetables'. It gives the customer a subliminal message that the menu is geared towards seasonal produce."