5 Tips on How to Memorize a Menu

Congratulations! After a couple interviews, that neighborhood diner has finally decided to make you a part of their “team.” They tell you to show up on next week Monday to fill out some paperwork and then the training begins. What should you expect? It all starts with the menu. Whether big or small, there are a few helpful tips I’ve got on how to memorize a menu.

1.    Try the food!

If there is one all encompassing way on how to remember food, it’s to try it. When you eat, you are using your all of your senses. Smell, taste, sight, and touch create an experience. In some restaurants you will even ‘hear’ the sizzle of hot fajitas before they reach the table. These senses help reinforce your memory much more than studying written menu descriptions. They give an experience unique to each dish. Now, some places it’s impossible to try everything but you need to start somewhere. Most likely, what you try and what you like. What you like will be what you sell, at least at first.

2.    Seeing food helps you remember the ingredients.

Some of us are visual learners and others are not. In a restaurant, I believe that everyone has some visual learning. Each shift, you will likely be running food to your table or someone else’s. Look at the plate you’re holding. What ingredients can you see? Was the dish prepared normally or modified by the guest? Most restaurants have at least one training day devoted to food running or ‘watching.’ This means literally standing next to the kitchen and naming food as it comes out during lunch or dinner service. The other day I was quizzing a new server on the nachos but she was having trouble remembering the ingredients. No matter how many times I repeated them or she reread them back to me, it would not stick. As she stumbled once again I stopped her short and held out my hands as if I was holding the dish. “Here!” I exclaimed, “I’m holding a plate of nachos. What’s on them?” She rattled off the chips, cheese, beans, sour cream etc. without a stutter. I was a little surprised but it taught me how effective a visual can be where words are not.

3.     Don’t memorize it. Sell it!

Explain an item to someone else. One of the best ways I know of how to learn something is to teach it to someone else. You may think you know all the ingredients in Eggs Benedict (still using the diner example). Sell me on it. Tell me about the English muffin base, over easy eggs, salty cured ham, and velvety hollandaise sauce. Visualize it in your head as you recount each ingredient. Sell the dish. Ask a coworker to help quiz you on a dish or section of the menu. Most of the time, your greatest resource will be coworkers. The more you master telling others, the greater your salesmanship will become. With salesmanship comes money in your pocket

4.     Take a look at the kitchen’s prep line. 

The kitchen only has access to so many ingredients. This is one of the most valuable insights I’ve learned working in restaurants. Although the menu may look like everything and the kitchen sink is involved, it’s not. The kitchen staff begins their shift hours before the regular servers do. This is because they need to prep (short for prepare) the line (kitchen line) with pre-made food they will use throughout the day. This food is then stored in drawer or containers that are easy to draw from during a busy service. When looking at a menu, you may notice a dish comes with black beans, corn, and tomatoes. Three ingredients to memorize. BUT if you look at the prep line, you’ll see they are pulling all three from one container holding, for example, black bean salsa. This allows more organization for the ingredients in your head. The more you know about what your kitchen’s resources are, the better you’ll be able to meet guests needs and answer their questions.

5.    Look for differences, not similarities

Although there are a lot of similarities among plates of food, these don’t help you remember anything. Instead, look for the subtle differences to memorize similar items. Burgers are a great example of this. A lot of restaurants with burgers offer 5-10 different ones. Sometimes the only difference is the sauce or a topping. Other times, it’s a completely different patty like turkey or veggie burgers. You can also count the ingredients in each one so when you repeat them back you’ll know if your off by one or two. The point is to separate each one in your head to make it easier to describe to guests later. Don’t like beef? We have a flavorful turkey burger or fresh veggie burger depending on your tastes. You like bacon? We have two burgers that come with it already or you can add it to any of them for just a $1.