How to write a restaurant menu in Arabic: names, layout and prices

To write a restaurant menu in Arabic, keep each well-known dish name (sounded out in Arabic letters if it’s foreign), add a short Arabic description of what is in it, and set the Arabic right to left in its own column. Use Modern Standard Arabic for the written text, show prices the same way on every line, and test-print before you order a run. Mark pork and alcohol plainly, and let a person answer halal questions.

This guide is for owners writing an Arabic menu for the first time: Gulf and Levant restaurants adding a proper Arabic version, and restaurants elsewhere that serve Arabic-speaking guests. It covers dish names, which Arabic to use, layout, prices, what to write about halal, and how to load it all into WaiterPilot. For service at the table (questions, a staff phrase card, notes the kitchen can’t read), see serving Arabic-speaking guests.

Should you translate or transliterate dish names?

Short answer: transliterate names that are the dish’s identity, translate names that are only descriptions, and add a plain Arabic description either way.

Transliteration means writing the sound of the name in Arabic letters: risotto becomes ريزوتو. Translation means writing the meaning: grilled chicken becomes دجاج مشوي. Most mistakes on Arabic menus come from doing the wrong one.

The rule is the same one menu-translation research keeps arriving at. A University of Edinburgh study of Chinese-English menus shows how a figurative name translated word for word (“Ants Climbing a Tree”) misleads guests, when the dish is “Sauteed Vermicelli with Minced Pork” (Zhang et al., arXiv, 2024). A 2025 Kaunas University of Technology thesis found AI tools made more errors than human translators on culture-specific dish names, including 11 completely unrelated translations (Ivaškevičiūtė, 2025). Our guide to AI menu translation accuracy covers both.

Table: translate or transliterate? Examples for a mixed menu

Three habits make this work:

• The description carries the meaning. A sounded-out name tells a guest what to call the dish. The line under it tells them what arrives.
• Use the spelling guests already know. Many foreign dishes have settled Arabic spellings. A native speaker can tell you which one your guests will recognize, and a quick look at local menus in your area helps.
• Don’t invent poetry. “A journey through the Mediterranean” translates badly into any language. “Grilled octopus, potatoes, olive oil, paprika” translates well into all of them.

Which Arabic should the menu use?

Short answer: Modern Standard Arabic for the written menu, with dialect words only where everyone uses them.

Arabic has one written standard, Modern Standard Arabic (often shortened to MSA, or فصحى), and many spoken dialects. Readers across the Arab world understand MSA in writing. A menu is a written document, so MSA is the safe default, whether your guests come from Riyadh, Cairo or Beirut.

Dialect still has a place. Some dish and drink names are simply what people say locally, and writing the formal word would look odd. Keep those few names, and keep the descriptions in MSA.

A chat is different, because it is a conversation. In WaiterPilot the owner chooses the Arabic its chat uses: Jordanian, Lebanese, Egyptian, Gulf (Emirati), Saudi or Modern Standard Arabic. In our 15 Oct 2026 test at BroadNet.AI’s demo café, a question written in Gulf Arabic was answered in Jordanian, the café’s chosen setting. The setting changes only tone: guests who write in other languages are still answered in theirs, and it never changes the menu or prices.

How do you lay out a bilingual Arabic and English menu?

Short answer: give Arabic its own column or block, set right to left, and never squeeze it onto the English line.

Arabic reads right to left. When English and Arabic share one line, the order of words, numbers and punctuation can scramble, especially in software that doesn’t handle Arabic properly. The safest layouts:

1. Two columns. English on the left, Arabic on the right, each dish on the same row. Prices in one place for both, usually the outer edge of the English column or a middle column.
2. Two blocks. The English dish line, then the Arabic dish line beneath it, set right-aligned.
3. Two menus. An Arabic menu and an English menu, if the menu is long.

Things that go wrong in print, and how to catch them:

• Letters that don’t join. Arabic letters connect to each other. Design software without Arabic support prints them separated and sometimes reversed. Use a tool with proper Arabic support, and have a native reader look at the proof.
• Mirrored layout details. Bullets, dish numbers and icons belong on the right side of Arabic text.
• Fonts. Pick an Arabic typeface that matches the weight of your English font, and keep body text large enough to read in low light.
• Mixed text. A Latin brand name inside an Arabic line (a cheese, a soft drink) can jump to the wrong end. Check every line that mixes scripts.

How should prices appear?

Short answer: one digit style, one currency format, the same position on every line, and a test print.

Arabic menus use either Western digits (0123456789) or Arabic-Indic digits (٠١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩). Both are widely read; look at what restaurants near you use. The rule is consistency.

• Pick one digit style for the whole menu. Don’t mix 25 and ٢٥ on one page.
• Write the currency the same way everywhere. The abbreviation in Arabic (ر.س for Saudi riyal, د.إ for UAE dirham) or in Latin letters (SAR, AED), always in the same position.
• Remember that numbers run left to right. Even inside Arabic text, “12.50” reads left to right. Most layout problems with prices come from this. A decimal point or currency symbol can end up on the wrong side.
• Proofread prices last, on paper. Check every line against your price list after the final layout, not before.
• Write “per person” and portion words in Arabic. “For two” (لشخصين) and “per piece” (للقطعة) matter on sharing plates and mezze.

What should an Arabic menu say about halal, pork and alcohol?

Short answer: name pork and alcohol on every dish that has them, write one true line about your meat, and send the rest to a member of staff.

Many guests won’t ask about pork or alcohol out loud; they read the description. So write it down, including alcohol used in cooking.

Avoid vague wording such as “halal-friendly”. It tells a careful guest nothing. Halal is about sourcing and slaughter, which only you and your suppliers know, so any question beyond your one line goes to a person.

In WaiterPilot, the chat answers from your menu. If your menu says which meat is halal-certified, it can repeat that. If the menu doesn’t say, it tells the guest to ask a member of staff. On allergies, it gives what your menu says and asks the guest to confirm with staff; your staff always have the final word. More on the allergies and dietary questions page.

A worked example: Casa Olivo’s Arabic menu

Casa Olivo is a fictional Mediterranean restaurant (an example, not a customer). The numbers are assumptions to show the work involved.

Casa Olivo has 48 dishes and sees Gulf families most summers. The owner plans the Arabic menu in three passes:

After pass 2, the owner’s menu editor in WaiterPilot would show dish names 48 of 48 and descriptions 12 of 48 in Arabic. An Arabic-speaking guest reads the other 36 descriptions in English. That’s a fair first step, because best sellers carry most orders.

The owner adds one line to the top of the menu, true only because Casa Olivo’s supplier provides certificates: which meats are halal-certified, and by which certifier. A native-speaking regular reads the printed proof and catches two price lines where the currency jumped to the wrong side.

How do you load an Arabic menu into WaiterPilot?

Short answer: send your menu as a PDF or photos with the Arabic you have; our team loads it, and you check it before guests see it.

WaiterPilot’s menu editor holds an English and an Arabic name for each dish, plus Arabic descriptions, choice labels and options. Its Arabic coverage panel shows, in the editor’s own words, “what an Arabic guest reads in Arabic”; anything missing is shown to them in English. In our 15 Oct 2026 test at BroadNet.AI’s demo café, the chat listed dishes with their saved Arabic names alongside, from a menu with Arabic names for all 147 dishes and Arabic descriptions for 19.

What an Arabic-speaking guest sees:

• Buttons: the guest screen has an EN/AR switch, so tabs and buttons (chat, menu, bill, waiter call) show in Arabic.
• Chat: replies in Arabic, in the dialect you chose, answering from your menu.
• Dishes: your saved Arabic names, with English where you haven’t added Arabic yet.

Fill the coverage in the same order as the worked example: names first, then best-seller descriptions, then the rest. The multilingual ordering page shows the Arabic screen, and our restaurant terms in 12 languages list helps with menu words.

Checklist before you print

1. Every dish has an Arabic name: transliterated if it’s the dish’s identity, translated if it’s a description.
2. The top 10 to 15 dishes have Arabic descriptions in Modern Standard Arabic.
3. Pork and alcohol, including alcohol in cooking, are named on every dish that has them.
4. One true line about halal meat, or about not serving it.
5. Arabic is set right to left, in its own column or block.
6. One digit style and one currency format, in the same place on every line.
7. A native reader has checked a printed proof.
8. Allergens appear in Arabic on every dish that contains them, and staff still decide.

What to do next

Write Arabic names for your 12 best sellers this week and have a native speaker read them. Then decide whether guests should also be able to ask questions in Arabic. To see the Arabic guest screen and a Gulf-Arabic question answered, try a sample order. WaiterPilot costs $200 per location per month after 30 days free, with 0% commission; see pricing.