The NYT has a huge article with curated restaurant menus that dissects trends across menu design, fonts, iconography, and the food itself. Love this.
@paulw I have mixed feelings about what they found.
I live in NYC, so prices here are already at the highest, and I can attest that "restaurants have responded by dedicating whole sections to buzz-free options. They can include a variety of teas, freshly pressed juices or virgin cocktails that taste just as complex — and cost just as much — as their alcoholic cousins" - is true.
Another pet peeve of mine is needing to squint to read menus. Not only they became tiny (ah! so it's not just my eyes getting older!), but many places keep it dim to the point you have to take out your phone and blind other people in the process of aiming your flashlight to the menu... what's u with that? What did you put in the plate you don't want me to see??
On a positive note, I love having more sizes options (I usually eat small, and had several meals made of appetizers only). The menus are interesting now, with all the colors and the nice artwork they add at times. It shows more style than before and this was something I missed during covid (don't get me started on the hoops you sometimes need to get through in order to just download a PDF menu and view it).
Lol thanks for supplying me with something to vent about 😅
@jtr Appreciate the on-the-ground feedback here. I'm in Minneapolis, and while probably not seeing the same price trending you are, it's gotten more expensive to eat out, and we're seeing a major splintering of fine dining and fast-casual happening to just about all restaurants where it's hardly worth it to go to middling restaurants in the middle.
I definitely agree with you on the small print. The type is getting infuriatingly tinier, and given a typically low-lit backdrop in most restaurants (which I tend to prefer), the user experience of the menu is getting far worse. At least the paper menu is finally back. I loathed using QR codes and using my phone at the dinner table. I like eating out to escape the trappings of screen overload and distractions at home.
Ha, at any rate, thanks for your comment -- hope you continue to enjoy eating out!