HAT302: Food and Beverage Management Menu Review and Redesign

This report provides a comprehensive review and redesign of a food and beverage menu from 'The Meat and Wine Co.', a fine-dining restaurant. The report begins with an overview of the restaurant's concept, menu structure, and target clientele, emphasizing the importance of fine dining principles. It then evaluates the existing menu, assessing its strengths, such as the variety of items and classifications, while also highlighting weaknesses, including the lack of nutritional information and allergen identification. The report proposes a revised menu, incorporating changes to address the identified issues, such as adding color, marking gluten-free and dairy-free options, including serving sizes, expanding the children's menu, and placing allergy warnings prominently. The report concludes by justifying the changes and providing references to support the recommendations, demonstrating an understanding of menu planning principles and customer needs in the food and beverage industry.

Running head: FOOD AND BEVERAGES MANAGEMENT
FOOD AND BEVERAGES MANAGEMENT
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
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Brief Review
Overview: The chosen Australian outlet whose menu will be evaluated is the ‘The Meat
and Wine Co. - a fine dining restaurant located across a number of suburbs in the nation (The
Meat & Wine Co. 2019).
Current Concept: The menu and restaurant concept which The Meat and Wine Co.
specializes in is ‘fine dining’. Restaurants which adhere to this concept of catering, generally
designs its food and beverage ventures to a clientele with upscale or high-end preferences, and
hence, comprises of a menus which are fancier, detailed yet minimalistic, served in an ambience
which is always formal and with ‘sit-down facilities (Rozekhi et al. 2016). Indeed, as evident
from the interface of The Meat and Wine Co.’s website, its claims of providing a specialty
ranges of wines and means served in plus interiors characterized by abstract modernity as well as
cultural roots, truly demonstrate the concept of fine dining (The Meat & Wine Co. 2019).
The Meat and Wine Co.’s a la carte menu demonstrates a range of the seafood and meat
preparations and also further lives up to its name with an extensive wine and beverage menu
(The Meat & Wine Co. 2019). Fine dining restaurants, due to their maintenance of an upscale
customer profile, aim to design a menu comprising of foods which are rare, exotic, fancy and
demand the highest quality in preparation (Jin et al. 2015). Indeed, The Meat and Wine Co.’s
menu demonstrates this concept by focusing on ‘Monte Beef’ and steak items inspired by Africa
(The Meat & Wine Co. 2019).

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Evaluating the Menu
Number: The menus provided by The Meat and Wine Co. are extensive in number – a
notable advantage in terms availability of choice to customers (Thomas 2016). It’s a la carte
menu itself comprises of more than 100 items segregated into a variety of sections or food
groups. The menu for wines is equally extensive and vast with more than 100 alcoholic
beverages and lives up to the outlets specialty of providing an extensive meat and wine menu
(The Meat & Wine Co. 2019).
Classifications: The Meat and Wine Co.’s extensive menu is segregated intricately into a
range of food groups such as entrees, skewered meat, salads, breads, seafood, sauces and
desserts. Such detailed classifications are further demonstrated in the restaurants wine list, which
is segregated into champagnes, sparkling wines, red blends, cabernet blends, vintage wines, rose
wines, shiraz, chardonnay and more (The Meat & Wine Co. 2019). Such extensive classifications
is also a major advantage since it assist customers in identifying the type or group of food they
are looking for and hence, simplifies customer food selected process (Thomas 2016).
Variety: Another key specialty of menus available in The Meat and Wine Co. is the
variety of items offered. In terms of types of menu, the restaurant provided both a la carte as well
as fixed priced menus hence catering to both types of customers preferring variety of preferring
fixed food options in a budget. A wide range of almost 9 sauces leave room for plenty of variety
of meat preparations of their choice. In addition to their list of wines, the outlet also provides a
list of beers, cocktails and mocktails and hence cater to customers preferring alcohol as well as
non-alcoholic menus. Such variety is a key strength since it increases the potential of the outlet
to better adhere to customers’ unique choices (Gordon and Brezinski 2016).

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Nutritional Value: The menu does not offer any detail on the nutritional value of food
items or the identification of allergens in food except of a short warning notice below, which is a
major limitation in terms of difficulty in food selection for customers with special dietary
requirements (Din, Zahari and Shariff 2017).
Potential Issues
Issues: Hence, from the above observations, one of the major issues which can be
identified is the absence of any information on the nutritional values of food items. Additional
issues include a lack of identification of food items which may contain potential allergens. The
minor section of warning on such foods are also provided at the end of such an extensive menu
and hence, may be prone to ignorance if customers are in a hurry to order. The food and
beverage items provided under mocktails and the children’s menu are quite limited and a
disadvantage for individuals looking for non-alcoholic beverages of for families looking for
options for their children. The identified issues in the original menu can be observed in Figure 1
(The Meat & Wine Co. 2019).

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Figure 1: Original Menu (Source: The Meat & Wine Co. 2019).

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Alternative Menu and Justification: Considering all these limitations, a revised menu
has been formulated, as demonstrated by Figure 2. Firstly, the background of the menu has been
changed to add more color. The previous available in the website was devoid of colors as evident
in Figure 1. It has been evidenced that a colorful and attractive menu are more appealing to
customers (Seyitoglu 2017). Additionally, dishes which are devoid of gluten and dairy have been
marked as GF (Gluten Free) and DF (Dairy Free) which were missing in the previous menu,
Such segregation is useful for customers with special dietary requirements who need to select
food careful. Additionally, serving sizes have been mentioned which were missing before to
improve the customer food choice and decision-making. Additional dishes in the children’s
menu have been added to enhance variety. To avoid any missed information, allergy and halal
warnings have been placed with larger font at the front (Ayala et al. 2017).

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Figure 2: Revised and Alternative Menu

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References
Ayala, G., Castro, I., Pickrel, J., Lin, S.F., Williams, C., Madanat, H., Jun, H.J. and Zive, M.,
2017. A Cluster Randomized Trial to Promote Healthy Menu Items for Children: The Kids’
Choice Restaurant Program. International journal of environmental research and public
health, 14(12), p.1494.
Din, N., Zahari, M.S.M. and Shariff, S.M., 2017. Nutritional labelling in Malaysian full service
restaurant menu. Journal of ASIAN Behavioural Studies, 2(2), pp.47-55.
Gordon, R.T. and Brezinski, M.H., 2016. The complete restaurant management guide.
Routledge.
Jin, N., Goh, B., Huffman, L. and Yuan, J.J., 2015. Predictors and outcomes of perceived image
of restaurant innovativeness in fine-dining restaurants. Journal of Hospitality Marketing &
Management, 24(5), pp.457-485.
Rozekhi, N.A., Hussin, S., Siddiqe, A.S.K.A.R., Rashid, P.D.A. and Salmi, N.S., 2016. The
influence of food quality on customer satisfaction in fine dining restaurant: Case in
Penang. International Academic Research Journal of Business and Technology, 2(2), pp.45-50.
Seyitoglu, F., 2017. Components of the menu planning process: the case of five star hotels in
Antalya. British Food Journal, 119(7), pp.1562-1577.
The Meat & Wine Co. (2019). A La Carte Menu | The Meat & Wine Co Steakhouse Restaurants.
[online] The Meat & Wine Co. Available at: https://themeatandwineco.com/menus/a-la-carte-
menu/ [Accessed 13 Aug. 2019].

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Thomas, E., 2016. Food for thought: obstacles to menu labelling in restaurants and
cafeterias. Public health nutrition, 19(12), pp.2185-2189.