Tasting Menus
Tasting Menus lets chefs build named multi-course degustation menus — each course has a dish, description, chef's note, wine pairing, allergen flags and serving temperature. Guests get an elegant printed menu card; the kitchen gets a plain briefing sheet with allergens and timing for the number of guests being served.
Overview
This is distinct from Combos & Set Menus (price-focused bundled deals), Menu Engineering (sales analytics), Daily Specials (single-dish additions) and Course Firing (live firing during service) — this page is purely for composing and printing named tasting-menu experiences.
A menu has a Status of Active or Archived — archived menus are shown dimmed in the list but are not deleted, and remain available to duplicate or reactivate.
Courses are built one at a time and can be reordered with up/down arrows (no drag-and-drop); each course has its own Course Type (Amuse-bouche, Starter, Soup, Fish, Palette Sorbet, Main, Cheese, Pre-Dessert, Dessert, Mignardises) with a matching emoji.
Each course records a Dish Name, Description (for the guest card), a separate Chef's Internal Note (kitchen-only, never printed on the guest card), a Wine Pairing, a Temperature/Timing hint, and multi-select Allergen flags.
An allergen summary aggregated across all courses is shown while editing the menu, so you can spot at a glance whether the whole tasting experience contains gluten, dairy, nuts, etc.
Two distinct print outputs exist from the same course data: a Guest Card (elegant serif layout with dish names, descriptions and wine pairings, but no chef notes or allergens) and a Kitchen Brief (plain table with dish, chef's note, allergens and temperature/timing, for a given number of guests).
The Duplicate action copies an existing menu (including all its courses) as a new Archived draft named "[Original] (Copy)" — useful for seasonal variations of a menu without editing the original.
Before You Start
- You must have the Billing feature enabled on your plan.
Step-by-Step Guide
1 Build a new tasting menu
- Open Events & Banquet → Tasting Menus and click "New Tasting Menu".
- Enter the Menu Name, Subtitle, Season/Occasion, Chef's Name, Price per head, and whether a Wine Pairing option is offered (with its own price).
- Add a Menu Introduction for the guest card, then click "+ Add Course" for each course.
- For each course, expand it to set the Course Type, Dish Name, Description, Chef's Internal Note, Wine Pairing, Temperature/Timing and any Allergens.
- Reorder courses with the up/down arrows as needed, then click "Create Menu".
2 Print a guest card and kitchen brief
- On the menu card (or inside the edit modal), enter the number of guests (Pax) if prompted for the kitchen brief.
- Click "Guest Card" to print the elegant guest-facing menu with course descriptions and wine pairings.
- Click "Kitchen" to print the plain kitchen briefing table with dish, chef's note, allergens and timing for that many guests.
3 Duplicate a menu for a new season
- Click "Duplicate" on an existing menu card.
- A copy opens in the edit modal named "[Original] (Copy)" with Status set to Archived and all courses copied — adjust the name, season and any courses, then save.
4 Archive or filter menus
- Set a menu's Status to Archived in the edit modal once it is retired from service — it stays visible (dimmed) in the "All" and "Archived" filters but drops out of "Active".
- Use the All / Active / Archived filter chips at the top to switch which menus are shown.
Every Field & Button, Explained
| Field / Button | What it does |
|---|---|
Menu Name, Price per head | Both required before a menu can be saved (Price per head can be 0). |
Subtitle / Season / Chef's Name | Subtitle appears under the menu name on both the card and guest print (e.g. "7 Course Degustation"); Season is picked from a fixed list including Year-round, Festive Season, Valentine's, New Year's Eve. |
Wine Pairing (available + price) | A yes/no toggle; when enabled, a separate Pairing Price is shown on both the menu card and the printed guest card next to the per-head price. |
Course Type | One of ten fixed types (Amuse-bouche, Starter, Soup, Fish Course, Palette Sorbet, Main Course, Cheese Course, Pre-Dessert, Dessert, Mignardises), each with its own emoji. |
Dish Name / Description | Both appear on the printed guest card; Description is written in guest-facing language (e.g. "Smoked in the tandoor over hickory chips…"). |
Chef's Internal Note | Kitchen-only — appears on the Kitchen Brief print but never on the Guest Card, useful for prep instructions like exact timing. |
Wine Pairing (per course) / Temperature-Timing | Wine Pairing per course shows on the guest card with a wine-glass icon; Temperature/Timing (e.g. "Serve chilled") appears only on the Kitchen Brief. |
Allergens (per course) | Multi-select from Gluten, Dairy, Egg, Nuts, Shellfish, Fish, Soy, Mustard, Sesame — rolled up into a menu-wide allergen summary and shown on the Kitchen Brief per course. |
Status | Active or Archived — a simple toggle, not a multi-stage flow; archived menus remain in the list and can still be duplicated or printed. |
Tips & Best Practices
- Keep Chef's Internal Note and Description separate in your mind while filling them in — anything typed into Description will be seen by guests on the printed card, while the Internal Note never is.
- Update the Pax number before printing the Kitchen Brief — it is the only place the guest count is used, driving how the kitchen scales prep for that service.
- Use Duplicate rather than editing an existing seasonal menu directly if you want to keep last season's version for reference — the duplicate opens as an Archived draft, leaving the original untouched until you save changes.