An excerpt from http://www.sitepoint.com/mastering-visual-hierarchy-menu-design/, by Alex Bigman
When we hear the phrase ‘menu design’, most of us think of user interfaces, but there are many wonderful lessons in design and information architecture that we can learn from the long and competitive history of restaurant menu design. Let’s have a looks at a few of my favorite examples.
Eleven Madison Park in New York City is a world-class restaurant in every sense of the term. They have clocked in as one of the top five in the world, in fact, and a meal here will set you back a couple hundred bucks—without wine.
But let’s say you saved your pennies and managed to land a reservation. The menu you received would have looked like this:
Eleven Madison Park by Juliette Cezzar (via Art of the Menu)
Amazing. Designed by Juliette Cezzar, it is absolutely free of clutter, containing literally just the essential information—the main component of every dish, arranged in a 4 x 4 grid. As such, it demonstrates one of the key principles of visual hierarchy: put extra space around the important things, so they are easier to see.
Unfortunately, as a practical model for menu design, it is pretty much useless. Eleven Madison Park’s situation is extremely particular. Here, the restaurant’s reputation is so awesome, customers can order on faith, without even seeing descriptions of the dishes.
By contrast, most menus are required to provide a lot more information, including categories (starter, main course, dessert), descriptions, and prices, at the very least.