Menu Design: A Review of Literature

Destination Restaurants' Practices and the Production of Locality: The Case of Michelin Restaurants in China

Dining plays a pivotal role in the travel experience, with numerous studies identifying the significant impacts of restaurant attributes on tourists' destination experiences and their sense of place. The identified attributes include the origin of food produce, menu design, the physical and social servicescape, and restaurant reputation, all of which have the potential to enhance customers' sense of place. Therefore, based on theories of the production of locality, this study explores how destination restaurants "put place on the plate" and identifies how destination restaurants promote place. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the representatives of seventeen Michelin (one star, two stars, three stars, and Bib Gourmand)-awarded restaurants across Mainland China. The results reveal three primary strategies employed by destination restaurants in promoting place: forging partnerships with the local community to produce, present, and reproduce localities; leveraging local knowledge embedded in the local produce, recipes, cooking techniques, and local culture; and practicing translocality to introduce a regional cuisine to diverse and cosmopolitan consumers. This research provides a comprehensive understanding of the way in which notions of locality and place are used by destination restaurants and the way in which this may promote not only restaurants but also regional culinary cultures and destination attractiveness.

Increasing the Consumption of Environmentally Friendly Foods in a University Dining Hall Using Menu Item Placement

Creating a decision-making environment that promotes sustainable food choices is a priority for both the individual and society. This study aimed at encouraging plant-based menu choices by re-ordering the menu according to the carbon footprint values. The project was conducted in a grab-and-go eatery at a large United States public university, where students could order their meals choosing among different menu options that were customizable with various ingredients. The order of menu ingredients was changed twice: for five weeks, from the most to the least impactful in terms of carbon footprint; subsequently, for another five weeks the order was reversed. At both times, all sales data were recorded. A total of 279,219 and 288,527 items were selected, respectively, during the first and the second intervention. A significant association was found between menu re-ordering and customers' choices for almost all food categories considered. Overall, despite beef choices not changing, results showed that students were more likely to choose low-carbon options when these were placed at the beginning, emphasizing that food selections were impacted by ingredient placement on the menu list. These findings highlight the need for a multi-level strategy focused on raising students' awareness of the environmental impact of animal-based foods, particularly beef.

The Effects of Green Restaurant Attributes on Customer Satisfaction Using the Structural Topic Model on Online Customer Reviews

Although green practice is increasingly adopted in the restaurant industry, there is still little research in terms of investigating the impacts of green practice on customer satisfaction. This study utilized user-generated content by green restaurant customers to identify various aspects of green restaurants, including perceived green restaurant practices. Our data are based on U.S. green-certified restaurants available on Yelp. Structural topic modeling was used to discover latent restaurant attributes from user-generated content. With a longitudinal approach, the changes in customers’ interest in green practices were estimated. Finally, the common restaurant attributes and green attributes were used to predict customer satisfaction. This study will contribute to marketing strategies for the restaurant industry.

Food Rating Scale in Food Services: From Development to Assessment of a Strategy for Consumer Healthier Choices

This study aimed to create an easy tool to identify healthier choices for meal assembly in food services (self-service restaurants) and to allow consumers to compose their plates to make healthier choices. It is an interventional study, and the first step was setting healthy food parameters to design a rating scale. The first evaluation criterion was based on energy density (ED) and sodium content (SC) using “traffic light” color in the dishes’ nameplates; the second criterion was based on food groups; the third criterion was based on ingredients of the meals. After using the classification, we assessed the rating scale in a food service and we evaluated the strategy with its consumers. To evaluate the effect of the nutritional intervention, we developed a multiple-choice-questionnaire with eight questions to measure the impact on consumer food choices quantitatively. The dish nameplate allows identification of healthier choices regarding SC and/or ED by colors; ingredients that compose the dish; the food group and the serving size, helping the identification of the amount of food to compose the meal. Banners helped consumers to understand the information. After four weeks, all the consumers (n = 1000) received questionnaires regarding their comprehension of the classification. The questionnaire presented an ICC of 0.71. Most of the preparations (61%) were inadequate based on ED and/or SC at the studied food service. A total of 556 consumers returned questionnaires, and 86.3% of them observed the rating scale as a nutritional strategy. Almost 55% (n = 261) of consumers reported changes in food choice after reading the dishes nameplates. The items with greater impact on consumer change in eating behavior were the use of colors as an indicator of nutritional quality, portion size information and ingredients list. Almost 25% of the consumers that changed their eating behavior noticed more than three items presented on the nameplate.

Particular Alimentations for Nutrition, Health and Pleasure

People around the world select their foods and meals according to particular choices based on physiological disorders and diseases, traditions, lifestyles, beliefs, etc. In this chapter, two of these particular alimentations are reviewed: those of the gourmet and the frail elderly. They take place in an environment where food is usually synonymous of body health disregarding its effects on social, cultural and psychological aspects, including emotions. Based on an extensive literature review, it is proposed that the paradigm changes from food equals health to food means well-being, the latter encompassing physical and physiological aspects as well as psychological, emotional and social aspects at the individual and societal levels. The growing food and nutrition requirements of an aging population are reviewed and special nutritious and enjoyable products available for this group are discussed.

Relating Food Engineering to Cooking and Gastronomy

Modern consumers are increasingly eating meals away from home and are concerned about food quality, taste, and health aspects. Food engineering (FE) has traditionally been associated with the industrial processing of foods; however, most underlying phenomena related to FE also take place in the kitchen during meal preparation. Although chemists have positively interacted with acclaimed chefs and physicists have used foods as materials to demonstrate some of their theories, this has not been always the case with food engineers. This review addresses areas that may broaden the vision of FE by interfacing with cooking and gastronomy. Examples are presented where food materials science may shed light on otherwise empirical gastronomic formulations and cooking techniques. A review of contributions in modeling of food processing reveals that they can also be adapted to events going on in pots and ovens, and that results can be made available in simple terms to cooks. Industrial technologies, traditional and emerging, may be adapted to expand the collection of culinary transformations, while novel equipment, digital technologies, and laboratory instruments are equipping the 21st-century kitchens. FE should become a part of food innovation and entrepreneurship now being led by chefs. Finally, it is suggested that food engineers become integrated into gastronomy's concerns about safety, sustainability, nutrition, and a better food use.