How do I add dishes and choices to my menu?

Add categories and dishes on the Menu page, give a dish choices like sizes and sauces, and share a choice step across dishes.

Part of How do I build my menu and share it with guests?. This part covers building the menu itself: categories and dishes, a dish's choices, picking the same item more than once, "can be made … on request", and reusable choices.

Build your menu

Two more switches in the dish form put a small tag beside the dish on your menu: Mark as popular shows a "Popular" badge (you choose — it's never automatic), and Mark as new shows a "New" tag for four weeks. The switch tells you the tag's last day, and the tag drops off by itself after it — tick it when your autumn dishes go on, and the tags go on their own at the end of October. Both start off.

To change a dish later, open it, edit and click Save changes. You can't delete a category while it still contains dishes — move or delete the dishes first. If deleting a dish would leave its category empty, the delete confirmation offers a tick-box — "This leaves "<category>" empty — remove the category too?" — so you can clear both in one go; leave it unticked (the default) and the empty category stays. Empty categories never show on your public menu either way. If a live set menu or deal points at the category, the confirmation says so — with no dishes in it the deal simply isn't offered until dishes return. Deleting a dish or category that a promotion's scope or a loyalty reward's menu link points at also warns you first, naming what's affected (promotions, loyalty rewards or both) — "Delete anyway" proceeds. Replacing your whole menu via the menu import shows the same warning, listing every affected promotion and reward before anything is wiped.

Give a dish choices (sizes, sauces and more)

Some dishes come in versions — a choice of size, wings or ribs, a pick of sauces. Open the dish and use its Choices section to set them up:

If a single option runs out mid-service (say, the ribs), mark just that option sold out — the dish and its other choices stay available.

Guests browsing your menu see what each choice offers before they decide where to eat. On the dish's card every step gets one short line — its prompt, then its options with any extra cost, like "Pick your sauce: Peppercorn · Béarnaise +£1.50 · Red wine jus" — cut after four options with "and 3 more". Tapping the dish opens its box with every step in full: how many to pick ("Pick one", "Pick up to 3", "Pick one if you like"), each option with its extra cost, its description and its own allergens and dietary marks, sold-out options marked, and an option that needs an earlier pick marked "Only with Large". That's the same on your menu page, the menu widget on your own website, shareable menus and event menus. Nothing about ordering changes: a guest ordering (at a table, for collection or delivery) still picks step by step when they add the dish. Your own dashboard's dish rows show the "Choices:" prompts at a glance.

Let guests pick the same item more than once

Sometimes the right answer is three of the same thing — ten wings across six sauces, four hash browns on one builder breakfast. Open the choice step and switch on Allow the same item more than once: guests then get − and ＋ buttons against each option instead of one-tap picks, with the running count stated plainly as they go. Each extra one adds the option's +£ again — three hash browns at +£1 each add £3.

With repeats on, How many can they pick? counts the total number of items rather than different options, so it can be bigger than the list itself — "up to 10 items from these 6 options" is exactly the point (totals can go up to 50). If one option shouldn't hog the lot, set Most of any single item — a per-option cap ("no more than 3 of each"). The editor's Guests will see line previews the rule in everyday words before you save, and switching repeats back off simply clamps the numbers to the list size again.

Wherever the order travels next — the kitchen and bar screens, the printed day sheet, receipts and confirmation emails — repeated picks show once with a count, like "Hash brown ×3", never three identical lines.

Can be made gluten-free (or vegan, and so on) on request

Some dishes come one way but your kitchen will make them another — the Christmas turkey without the gluten, a curry made vegan. Open the dish and, on the Allergens step, tick the mark on the second row, Can be made … on request (Dairy-free, Gluten-free, Vegan or Vegetarian). A mark sits on one row or the other — ticking it here takes it off Dietary ("the whole dish is…").

An "on request" version isn't a promise of no cross-contact — your menu's line about allergens in your kitchen and the checkout's allergy question still apply. It's menu information, so it's on every plan's menu; unticking a mark is never blocked.

Check these dishes. A dish ticked Gluten-free on the dish that also asks guests to pick "Standard / Gluten Free" is now shown as "Gluten-free option" (it can't be gluten-free both ways), and so are dishes like it ("Vegan", "V", "Dairy Free", "DF"). Menu → Allergens lists them under Check these dishes, each with Make it "gluten-free on request" — which opens the dish on its Allergens step with the mark moved to the second row and your hand-built "Standard / Gluten Free" step folded into the automatic question, as a preview: nothing changes until you press Save dish — or It's gluten-free either way, which keeps the plain "Gluten-free". Dishes that had the old "through its choices" switch on are listed too, with Move it to "Can be made … on request". The Menu page says how many are waiting.

Reusable choices — build a step once, share it across dishes

A bar menu makes the problem obvious: 40 spirits, one "Choose your mixer" question. Rather than copying it 40 times, build it once as a reusable choice — the Menu page's Reusable choices tab. (If you knew these as "choice sets", it's the same thing renamed.)

The point of a reusable choice is that editing it updates every dish using it — add a new mixer once and all 40 spirits offer it. Because that's powerful, an edit's Review names every dish it will change before anything happens, and the save button itself says how many ("Save and update 41 dishes"). Each reusable choice's row says where it's used — "Used on Steak frites", or "Used on 3 dishes" with the list one tap away. A reusable choice that's still on dishes can't be deleted — remove it from those dishes first. If one gains a priced option, every dish using it switches to a From price automatically, exactly as if you'd priced the option on the dish itself.

Related: How do I build my menu and share it with guests? · How do I set allergens, alcohol and VAT on my dishes? · How do I build set menus and deals? · How do I import my menu instead of typing it in?