A delivery menu that is not your dining room menu

The easiest way to start delivery is to put the whole dining room menu online. Every dish is already costed, photographed and described, and guests who love the restaurant can order their favourites at home. It is also one of the surest ways to damage the restaurant's reputation.

Food changes in a box. Crisp things soften, hot things cool, sauces split, delicate plating slides into one corner. A dish that is wonderful at the table can arrive twenty-five minutes later as something the kitchen would never have sent out, and the guest who receives it does not blame the box. They blame the restaurant, and they say so in a review.

This guide covers why the dining room menu does not travel, which dishes do and which never should, how to build a shorter delivery menu that protects both margin and reputation, and what takeaway packaging, delivery pricing and allergen information need. Every figure in it is an example.

A dining room menu is designed for the moment a plate leaves the pass and reaches the table, usually less than a minute. Every dish assumes that journey: the chips are crisp because they are eaten within minutes, the fish is just cooked because it is eaten now, the sauce is glossy because it has not had time to set.

Delivery replaces that minute with a long, uncontrolled journey: waiting for a driver, a ride across town, a walk up the stairs, and often a few more minutes while the guest finds plates. Twenty to forty minutes is common. Very few dishes are designed for that.

So a delivery menu is not a copy of the dining room menu. It is a separate menu, drawn from the same kitchen, chosen and adapted for the journey. Wikipedia's overview of food delivery traces how that journey has changed as apps and platforms have grown.

Understanding what the journey does to food makes it easier to choose the dishes.

Steam is the main enemy. Hot food in a closed container releases steam, which condenses and softens everything crisp: chips, fried coatings, toast, pastry. Heat loss is the second: food cools steadily, and dishes that need to be eaten hot suffer most. Movement is the third: sauces slide, stacked components topple, garnishes end up underneath.

Time affects texture too. Pasta keeps absorbing sauce and goes soft. Rare meat keeps cooking in its own heat. Salads dressed in the kitchen wilt. Ice cream melts. Each of these is predictable, which means each can be planned for, either by choosing dishes that cope or by changing how they are packed.

Some dishes are naturally suited to delivery, because they are designed to sit or improve as they rest.

These dishes form the core of most good delivery menus. They let the kitchen send food that arrives close to how it would be served in the dining room.

Some dishes should stay in the dining room. Sending them out puts the venue's reputation in the hands of the driver and the weather.

The last test is the most useful. If the head chef would not serve the dish after letting it sit, boxed, for the length of a typical delivery, it should not be on the delivery menu.

Between the two lists are dishes that can travel if they are adapted. Small changes often make the difference.

Pack sauces separately so components stay crisp and the guest adds the sauce at home. Undercook pasta slightly so it finishes in the journey. Send salads undressed. Separate hot and cold components into different containers. Replace a delicate garnish with a sturdier one. Change a fried coating to one that holds its crunch for longer.

These changes are worth making for the dishes guests most want at home, because they let the delivery menu include favourites that would otherwise arrive poorly. Each change should be tested, as described below, before the dish goes on the menu.

A delivery menu is usually shorter than the dining room menu, often much shorter. A dining room menu of twenty-five dishes might become a delivery menu of ten or twelve.

A short list has several advantages. It concentrates on the dishes that travel best, so every order arrives well. It is easier for the kitchen to produce alongside dining room service. It reduces the extra stock and packaging the venue needs. And it is easier for guests to choose from on a phone, where long menus are tiring to scroll.

The principles of menu size apply even more strongly to delivery. Our guide to menu size, and why thirty dishes is usually too many covers the costs of a long menu, and nearly all of them grow when the dishes also have to be packed and driven.

Menu engineering, judging each dish by its popularity and profitability, works differently for delivery. Each delivery order may carry costs the dining room does not: platform commission, packaging and sometimes a delivery fee the venue absorbs. A dish that earns well in the dining room may earn little once those costs are taken off.

So cost each delivery dish separately: the ingredients, the packaging, and the share of the order lost to commission or delivery costs. Then compare dishes on what they actually earn per delivery order. Our guide to menu item profitability, dish by dish covers the method, and our guide to aggregator commission and the real cost of an order covers the commission side.

The result often points to a delivery menu weighted towards dishes with good margins that travel well, such as braises, bowls and baked dishes, rather than the expensive, delicate dishes that earn most in the dining room.

Because delivery orders carry costs that dining room orders do not, many venues charge different prices for delivery. That is a decision of its own, with arguments on both sides, and it affects how guests see the venue.

The key point for the delivery menu is that prices must be set with the full cost of a delivery order in view: ingredients, packaging and the platform's share. A delivery menu priced exactly like the dining room menu may lose money on every order once commission is counted. Our guide to delivery pricing, and why the menu price must differ works through the arithmetic.

Whatever the prices, be clear and consistent. Guests who see one price in the restaurant and another online should be able to understand why.

Takeaway packaging is part of the dish. The right container keeps food at the right temperature, lets steam escape from crisp food, stops sauces leaking and keeps components apart until the guest is ready to eat. The wrong one turns a good dish into a soggy one.

Choose packaging for each type of dish: vented containers for fried and crisp food, sealed containers for sauces and soups, separate pots for dressings and sauces, insulated bags for the journey. Consider the environment too: many guests notice and care about packaging that can be recycled or composted, and some places have rules about single-use plastics.

Count the cost. Packaging can add a noticeable amount to each order, and a dish that needs three containers costs more to send than one that needs one. Include it in the cost of every delivery dish.

A dish in a box is seen differently from a dish on a plate. Guests open the lid and see everything at once, from above, often after the food has shifted. Presentation should be designed for that view.

Arrange components so they look right from above and stay in place: the main element on one side, sides separated, garnishes that will not slide. Avoid stacking that will topple. Make sure the portion looks generous in the container; a portion that looks right on a large plate can look small in a box.

Photograph the dish as it arrives, not as it leaves the pass. The photograph on the delivery platform should show what the guest will actually see when they open the lid, so expectations match reality.

Allergen information matters as much for delivery as in the dining room, and in some ways more, because the guest cannot ask a server. In the UK, food sold for delivery must have allergen information available before the order is placed and when the food is delivered.

Keep the delivery menu's allergen information accurate and complete, from the same records as the dining room menu, and update it whenever a delivery dish is adapted. A sauce packed separately is still part of the dish; a change of coating for travel may change its allergens.

Label containers clearly so the guest knows which dish is which, especially when a family order includes dishes for someone with an allergy. A mix-up between two similar-looking containers is an easy mistake and a serious one.

Delivery adds a second service to the kitchen. Delivery orders arrive at their own pace, often clustered at the same peak hours as the dining room, and every one needs cooking and packing.

The delivery menu should be chosen with that in mind. Dishes that use stations already busy at the dining room peak will slow both services. Dishes that can be prepared on a quieter station, or largely in advance, let the kitchen take delivery orders without dining room tables waiting.

Set up packing as a separate step, with its own space and its own person at busy times if possible, so the cooks are not packing between tickets. A packing checklist, covering sauces, cutlery, napkins and labels, stops the small omissions that lead to bad reviews.

Every delivery order is a meal guests judge the restaurant by, often without ever having visited. A poor delivery experience can put them off visiting at all, and delivery platform reviews are public and influential.

Protect the reputation by sending only dishes that arrive well, packed carefully, with accurate photographs and descriptions. Respond to delivery reviews as carefully as to dining room ones. Take complaints about specific dishes seriously: a dish that keeps arriving cold or soggy should be changed or removed, even if it sells.

It is better to offer ten dishes that always arrive well than twenty that sometimes disappoint. Guests forgive a short menu far more readily than a cold, soggy dinner.

Before a dish goes on the delivery menu, test it the way a guest will receive it. Cook it, pack it in the chosen container, and let it sit for the length of a typical delivery, perhaps twenty-five minutes, in an insulated bag. Better still, put it in a car and drive it around for that time.

Then open it as a guest would and judge it honestly. Is it hot enough? Has anything gone soft? Has the sauce stayed in its place? Does it look appetising when the lid comes off? Would you be happy to pay for it?

Change what fails and test again. A dish that passes this test can go on the menu; one that fails twice should stay in the dining room.

Delivery menus appear in more than one place: on delivery platforms, on the venue's own online ordering if it has it, and sometimes on a phone ordering service. Each channel may have different costs, different audiences and different technical limits on how the menu is shown.

Keep the delivery menu consistent across channels where you can: the same dishes, the same descriptions and accurate photographs, with any price differences deliberate rather than accidental. Our guide to online ordering: the channels and what each costs covers how the channels compare, and our guide to delivery aggregators, the deal read properly covers the platforms.

Update every channel together when the delivery menu changes, so a dish removed for travelling badly does not stay available somewhere.

Review the delivery menu regularly, with its own data. Which dishes sell for delivery, and which do not? Which earn well after commission and packaging, and which barely cover their costs? Which draw complaints about how they arrive?

Look at delivery separately from the dining room. A dish that sells well in the restaurant may sell poorly online, and the reverse. Guests at home often want different things from guests eating out: comfort, familiarity and dishes that are hard to make at home.

Change the delivery menu with the seasons, as you would the dining room menu, keeping the dishes that work and replacing the ones that do not.

An invented bistro puts its whole menu of twenty-four dishes on a delivery platform. Within weeks, reviews mention soggy chips, cold steak and a tarte fine that arrived in pieces. Orders are steady, but the venue's rating on the platform falls, and the head chef estimates that several dishes lose money once commission and packaging are counted.

The bistro builds a separate delivery menu of eleven dishes: three braises, two grain bowls, a roast chicken with sauce on the side, a sturdy salad with the dressing packed separately, two pizzas and two baked desserts. Each is costed with packaging and commission, tested in a car for twenty-five minutes and photographed as it arrives.

Over the next two months, complaints about how the food arrives almost stop, the platform rating recovers, and the delivery orders, though slightly fewer, earn more each. The dining room menu is untouched, and its reputation is no longer being decided by dishes that were never meant to travel.

servearound does not take delivery or takeaway orders, and it does not connect to delivery platforms today, so a delivery menu and its orders live on the platforms or ordering service you use. What servearound holds is the dining room side that a delivery menu is chosen from: every dish with its price, description, photographs, ingredients and allergen and dietary tags, which is a reliable starting point for the delivery version.

The menu report shows how each dish sells in the venue over any dates, and kitchen analytics show ticket times by station and which dishes take up the most kitchen minutes, which helps keep delivery dishes off the stations that are busiest at the peak. servearound does not hold recipe or packaging costs, so the delivery costing stays in your own sheet. See the menus module and Analytics.

Usually not. A delivery menu should be a shorter list of dishes that travel well, chosen and adapted for a twenty to forty minute journey.

Braises, stews, curries, rice and grain bowls, roasted meats with sauce packed separately, sturdy salads with dressing on the side, pizzas and baked desserts.

Delicate fried dishes, precisely timed dishes, elaborately plated dishes and anything the chef would not serve after it had sat boxed for a typical delivery.

Often around ten to twelve, built from the dishes that travel and earn best, so every order arrives well and the kitchen copes alongside the dining room.

Include the ingredients, the packaging and the share of each order lost to commission or delivery costs, then compare dishes on what they earn per delivery order.

Containers suited to each dish: vented for crisp food, sealed for sauces, separate pots for dressings, insulated bags, and clear labels.

Yes. In the UK, allergen information must be available before the order is placed and when the food is delivered.

Cook and pack it, let it sit or drive it around for a typical delivery time, then open it as a guest would and judge it honestly.

Review it regularly with its own sales, margins and complaints, and change it with the seasons, keeping what works.

A dining room menu is designed for a minute between pass and table; delivery replaces that minute with twenty to forty minutes in a box, where steam, cooling and movement change the food. Build a separate delivery menu: a shorter list of dishes that travel well, such as braises, bowls, roasts with sauce on the side and baked desserts, plus favourites adapted to cope with the journey.

Cost each delivery dish with packaging and commission, set delivery pricing with those costs in view, choose packaging for each dish, photograph dishes as they arrive and keep allergen information complete. Test every dish in a box before it goes on, keep delivery dishes off the busiest stations, and review the delivery menu with its own data, because a short menu that always arrives well protects both margin and reputation.