Creative menu design is an integral part of any high-end dining experience. Check out these 21 brilliantly creative examples.
12. L'Encant, Spain
Spanish creative agency Nuria Vila pays homage to the Japanese folding fan with this beautiful menu design
The menus at L'Encant sushi bar were created by Spanish design agency Nuria Vila. Designed to reinforce the restaurant's blend of Japanese and Catalan culture, the team developed this concept, which pays homage to Japanese folding fans. Inside the wooden cover, menus are printed on stone paper.
13. Fade St. Social, Dublin
Steve Simpson created this eye-catching design for gastro bar Fade St. Social in Dublin
Illustrator Steve Simpson is the man behind this vibrant menu design for Fade Street Social in Dublin. The gorgeous drawings conveys the restaurant's quality food and fun, relaxed atmosphere and showcases the unique Irish character and sense of humour brilliantly.
14. Mr Brown, Mexico
Mr Brown's menus double as part of the restaurant's decor.
Jerome and Zimmerman create and renew brands. And that's exactly what the creative duo did recently for Mexican restaurant Mr Brown. Instead of just acting as a source of information, the pair redesigned the menus to become part of the restaurant's decor, creating wooden boards with menu pages attached and letters on the reverse spelling out its name.
15. Smith, Toronto
Designer Tracy Ma came up with this unique menu design for Toronto-based bistro Smith
Smith is a restaurant and club located in Gay Village in downtown Toronto. Its unique menu design resembles a newspaper, featuring a large, easily readable font and black-and-white photographs of the food on offer. Created by graphic designer Tracy Ma, who currently works at Bloomberg Businessweek, the menu is set to change seasonally.
16. Eleven Madison Park, New York
This gorgeous, minimalist grid menu was created by New York-based designer Juliette Cezzar
This minimal and elegant menu design appeared on the tables of New York-based restaurant Eleven Madison Park until late last year. Created by designer, educator and author Juliette Cezzar, the 28-word food menu featured 16 principal food ingredients for customers to choose from.
17. Fat Cow, Singapore
Fat Cow's beautiful menus feature its food choices laser etched into wooden planks
Fat Cow is a beef-speciality restaurant that follows the Japanese method of cooking and serving beef. Inspired by the Japanese notion of 'Wabi Sabi', an aesthetic based on underplayed modesty, creative agency Foreign Policy came up with the concept of delivering its menus on wooden planks. The menu design also captured the style of the restaurant's food perfectly, with the laser etchings on the wood reminiscent of the branding of cattle.
18. Cafe Kafka, Barcelona
Cafe Kafka's gorgeous menu design was produced by creative studio Lo Siento
Creative studio Lo Seinto created these gorgeous menu designs for Mediterranean food restaurant Cafe Kafka in Barcelona. The menu covers feature beautiful illustrations, each of which tell a story as to what is held over the page. And the insides are just as impressive, featuring illustrations and type that showcase the restaurant's rich and vintage character beautifully.
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19. Maddigan's Freehouse, London
Graphic designer Aaron Kitney combined modern and gothic typefaces in this menu design
Art director and graphic designer Aaron Kitney was the man behind this eye-catching menu design for traditional British pub Maddigan's. Kitney comments on his website: "The main focus for this project was to revamp the identity to draw in additional clientele, while maintaining loyal patrons.
To achieve this, the existing atmosphere and experience was enhanced by using sophisticated type in a traditional setting. The combination of modern and gothic faces alludes to the past without sacrificing legibility."
20. Aroma, Menorca
This unique menu design features entire pages dedicated to single dishes
This minimal menu design was created by Barcelona-based graphic designer Eren Saracevic for Spanish gastro lounge Aroma. Wanting to develop a totally distinguishable menu, Saracevic concentrated entirely on the food, dedicating a whole page to each dish and using the Gotham typeface to describe it. He also decided to feature a simple illustration of a nose on the cover to give more importance to the content.
21. 13 Wives, Singapore
The drinks menu at cocktail bar 13 Wives is inspired the different women featured in the fictional narrative
This unique drinks menu is one of our favourite concepts. As well as being the name of speciality cocktail bar in Singapore, 13 Wives is the fictional story of the 13 women who inspire each drink found in this little black book. Another design from creative agency Foreign Policy, the team hand assembled and printed 35 copies in total.
Kerrie Hughes is a frequent contributor to Creative Bloq, and was once its editor. One of the original CB crew, Kerrie joined the team back in 2013 after moving from her role as staff writer on 3D World. Since then she's written regularly for other creative publications such as ImagineFX, Computer Arts and Digital Camera World. After a stint working for the police, Kerrie is back reviewing creative tech for creative professionals.
