Changing the visual,
not the purpose

Pochawa Grill had been using a photo-led menu alongside ordering machines at each table. During the redevelopment, the restaurant was also moving towards a more staff-led service model, with staff expected to introduce dishes directly to customers rather than leaving them to navigate the ordering process alone.

A new Head Chef also introduced a different philosophy for how the menu should work. Rather than showing every dish, he wanted customers to imagine the food. Photography would move to posters and other promotional materials, while the menu itself would become something people read instead of something they scanned visually.

At the same time, the team wanted to keep Korean dish names rather than replacing them with familiar English equivalents. The ambition was for customers to become familiar with those names over time, just as words like sushi, ramen, kimchi and matcha have become part of everyday English.

With staff taking a larger role in introducing the food, the physical menu no longer needed to explain everything by itself. It still needed to give customers enough information to follow that conversation and make a decision.

One proposal was to remove the dish descriptions altogether. I was the only person in the discussion approaching the menu from outside Korean culture, and even though I grew up in Asia, I still couldn't understand many of the Korean dish names without additional context. That became the basis of my feedback.

The final menu kept concise descriptions beneath each dish. Customers no longer relied on photographs, but they still had enough information to understand what they were ordering. The staff could add the human explanation, while the menu provided the structure and language to support it.

The move from a photo-led menu to a text-led one made more sense when viewed alongside the change in service. The menu was not being redesigned in isolation, the restaurant was changing how customers would learn about the food and place an order.

That meant the visual language could change substantially while the responsibility of the design stayed the same, customers still needed enough information to understand what they were choosing and take the next step.