Presenting Your Best Dishes Menu Selections for Websites Most restaurants have at least one signature dish. Most of them also have specialty items that go along with the overall theme of the restaurant. For example, a restaurant might be Italian, Mediterranean and Mexican or might even be a diner that serves a variety of dishes. When you’re putting together the website for your restaurant, you’re going to want to make certain that the dishes you feature as major parts of your restaurant web design are the best ones that you offer on the entire menu.
Selecting the Dishes The first consideration that you want to make in selecting the dishes that you’re going to feature on your website is which ones are actually going to look good in a photograph. Not all food looks particularly appetizing when it’s photographed. As any chef will tell you, eating is an experience that is as much about smell, touch and the other senses as it is about the site of a good meal being served. Choose dishes that are colorful and that look as delicious as they taste. For example, hamburger might not be the most exciting thing to see represented in a picture. A great piece of lasagna with all of the fixings, however, might whet somebody’s appetite just looking at it. Another thing to consider in devising your restaurant website design is whether or not you have a chef on staff that is known for a particular dish. While some restaurants have signature dishes, some chefs have their own signature dishes, as well. If you have a very high-end restaurant, it’s generally a good idea to feature your chefs on your site. This ensures that people who really know cuisine will be aware that you have someone with a great reputation on staff. Ask the chef what dishes they may want featured on the website. This gives them an opportunity to get very artistic with the presentation of the food, which is something that they excel at.
If you serve a particular type of ethnic cuisine, make certain that the food you select reflects as much. For example, if you have a Filipino restaurant, make sure you have adobo featured on the homepage. The same would apply if you are serving Greek or Italian cuisine. Your restaurant web design should reflect the dining experience that people can expect to have when they come to your restaurant. The dining experience is going to be partially defined by the foods they smell and see being served to other diners so, even if they don’t order one of your signature dishes, an image of your best items will give them an idea of what it’s like to sit down in your restaurant and enjoy a meal. If you have an extensive wine cellar or another feature of your restaurant that sets it apart from much of your competition, you may want to feature this in the restaurant web design, as well. Featuring images of your best wines or simply of a wine glass can make certain that your visitors know that they can expect to have a great beverage, in addition to the great food you’ll be serving them.