Dish name, description, price: a typographic hierarchy that sells
How to size, weight and space the three elements of every menu entry so guests read the dish first, the story second and the price last, with exact settings.
Every entry on a menu is a tiny three-part argument: this is the dish, this is why you want it, this is what it costs. The order in which a guest reads those three parts is decided by typography, not by the guest. Get the hierarchy right and the eye lands on the name, drifts through the description, and meets the price already half convinced. Get it wrong and the price is the first thing seen, which turns every dish into a bargain calculation. Here is how to build that hierarchy with sizes, weights and spacing, and how to test it.
Three levels, three different jobs
The dish name is the anchor. It must be found instantly when scanning and recognised at a distance; it carries the most weight and the largest size of the three. The description is the persuasion. It is read only after the name has caught attention, so it can be smaller and lighter, but it must remain comfortable to read in low light. The price is the information the guest needs last; it should be findable in one glance but should never compete visually with the name.
The most common failure is inverting the last two: bold prices and grey descriptions, which is exactly backwards. The second most common is making all three the same size and weight, which produces a list that has to be read word by word to be understood.
The settings that work
- Dish name: 11 to 13 pt, medium or semibold, sentence case or small caps, black or the darkest colour on the page.
- Description: 9 to 10.5 pt, regular, same family, leading 130 to 145 %, two lines maximum, flush left. Use italic only if the description is one short line.
- Price: same size as the dish name or 0.5 to 1 pt smaller, regular weight, never bold, same colour as the description or the name, no currency symbol or a light one.
- Space below the description before the next dish: at least 1.5 times the description leading.
- Contrast between levels: at least two of size, weight and case must change between name and description; one change is not enough to read at a glance.
These numbers assume a text face with an average x-height on an A4 or A5 card read at arm's length. On a large-format menu board or a tall A3 they scale up proportionally; the ratios are what matter.
Where the price goes
The position of the price interacts with the hierarchy. A price on the same line as the name, right-aligned, benefits from sharing the name's size: the eye reads name and price as one unit and does not have to hunt. A price set inline at the end of the description, in the description's size and weight, becomes the quietest element on the page, which is what fine-dining menus want. A price in a bold column with dotted leaders becomes the loudest element, which is what a value-driven brasserie wants.
Whatever position you choose, the price must never be heavier than the dish name. The Cornell research on menu formats found that de-emphasised prices, set without a symbol and without a column, were associated with slightly higher spend; you do not need to believe the exact figure to accept the direction.
The two-price case
Half and full portions, glass and bottle, small and large: two prices per line need a header row (150 ml / 750 ml) at the top of the section and two right-aligned tabular columns. Set both prices in the description weight. Do not put the second price in brackets after the first; brackets in a price column read as a mistake.
Weight versus size: which to change first
Designers argue about this and the answer for menus is clear: change weight before size. A 11 pt semibold name over a 10 pt regular description is a clean, compact pairing that fits on A5. A 13 pt regular name over a 10 pt regular description needs the extra size to distinguish itself and wastes vertical space. Size changes are for headings; weight changes are for the levels within an entry.
Do not use more than two weights inside an entry. Name in semibold, description and price in regular; that is the whole palette. A bold name, a regular description, an italic origin line and a medium price is four voices in three lines.
Colour as a fourth lever
If the menu prints in more than black, colour can replace one of the other contrasts. A dish name in the house colour (a deep green, a burgundy) with description and price in near-black lets the name stay at the same size and weight as the description while still leading the entry. Be careful with the reverse: coloured prices attract the eye exactly where you do not want it. Grey descriptions below 70 % black lose too much contrast under warm light; if you want a softer description, use a lighter weight instead of a lighter colour.
Testing the hierarchy in ten seconds
- Print the page and hold it at arm's length; squint until the text blurs. The dish names should still stand out as darker lines; if the prices stand out instead, they are too heavy.
- Show the page to someone for three seconds and ask what dishes they remember. If they name prices, the hierarchy is inverted.
- Check that no description exceeds two lines; a three-line description is a paragraph and reads as heavy as the name.
- Look for orphan prices that wrapped to their own line or a lone word on the second line of a description, and fix the copy.
- Verify that the gap between entries is visibly larger than the gap between name and description inside an entry.
The order the eye takes is the order you decide
A menu with a clear name-description-price hierarchy does not look designed; it looks obvious, which is the highest compliment a menu can get. Guests browse instead of scanning for the cheapest line, they read the description of the dish that carries your best margin, and they order with the food in mind rather than the number. Semibold name, regular description, quiet price, air between entries. That is the whole recipe.
In Menu Atelier every style applies a fixed name-description-price hierarchy to each entry, so a dish pasted from your list inherits the right weight, size and spacing automatically; you can swap between styles to compare a quiet inline price with a right-aligned column and see the difference in 3D before exporting.