May We Suggest: Restaurant Menus and the Art of Persuasion

by Alison Pearlman

We've all ordered from a restaurant menu. But have you ever wondered to what extent the menu is ordering you? In this fascinating new book, art historian and gastronome Alison Pearlman takes a critical look at the design of physical restaurant menus--their content, size, scope, material, and more--to explore how they influence (or not) our dining experiences and choices.

After years of collecting menus and studying their cultural significance through the lens of art history, Pearlman realized they were also profoundly important sales tools, affecting everything from a restaurant's operations and profits to a diner's expectations and behavior.

There was just one problem: she wasn't exactly convinced that any menu had ever swayed her own choices. So she set off on a mission to understand if, how, and when menus work in appealing to us diners, visiting and meticulously documenting more than 60 restaurants of all stripes in the greater Los Angeles area.

In May We Suggest, Pearlman applies her background in art to her love of cuisine by combining her own dining experiences with research from a broad range of disciplines, from experience design to behavioral economics. What emerges is a captivating, thought-provoking study of one of the most often read but rarely analyzed narrative works around: the humble menu.

Genres: Nonfiction, Food, Psychology

280 pages, Paperback

First published October 15, 2018

Reviews

[Jonathan Zheng · Rating 2 out of 5]

Feels like a draft. This isn't a very long read, clocking in at roughly 200 pages, but goes by veeery slow.

In this book, Dr. Pearlman shares her thoughts on how restaurants are designed to persuade you to spend more money, drawing on her own personal observations at 60+ restaurants in LA and interviews with menu designers, food business execs, restaurant owners and more. Some of the observations are really interesting, but I struggled with the book for a few reasons:

1. The book is mainly focused on menu layout and restaurant design, so I expected visual guides. But there are 0 pictures, figures, or graphs in here, except for the (mostly useless) tables in the appendices. To make matters worse...
2. The prose is thick. The language flows well, and Dr. Pearlman is certainly a "good writer," but that's not what I'm looking for in a book like this. I want the points to be concise, listed out, in subsections, key points bolded, etc - not just lines of prose. Maybe I'm just not the target audience? But...
3. It's not clear what the take-aways are; Dr. Pearlman even admits that "after surveying so many styles and components... your head may be spinning," chalking this up to the complexity of the topic. Restaurant design is complex and sometimes more an art than a science, so yes, Dr. Pearlman is right, but on the other hand I chose to read and buy this book because I expected her to clarify things. I understand the reluctance to oversimplify, but it feels like the breadth distracted from the central messages, to the point where I felt like even "Conclusion" section needed its own summary.


So this feels like a draft. This could become a great book if the analysis becomes more focused and the text more reader-friendly. There is some really neat info shared in the book, but as it stands I wouldn't recommend the book unless the topic especially intrugues you.

[Whitney Ford · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who is a consultant (interiors/architecture) to the restaurant industry, this book offered an interesting perspective about how guests interact with restaurants. Having worked with some of the brands mentioned was an unexpected insightful treat. I think many in, near, or appreciative of the industry, would enjoy and benefit from this research.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

yes, it's really a book about menus. Quite readable and also interesting. All the things I never thougth of.

[Dana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent research but when I saw the word design in the description I thought there would be images, which there are not.

[Vince Deuschel · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was somewhat non-committed - vague conclusions.