Translate a menu
How to translate a menu to English from a photo
The fastest way to translate a menu to English is to take a photo of it with a menu-translator app. MenuGuide, for example, turns the photo into a list of dishes in English with the original name underneath, a photo of each dish, its likely ingredients and allergens, and the price in your currency. Free camera translators such as Google Lens and Google Translate quickly translate the words on the page, and in tourist areas you can simply ask the staff for an English menu.
Real menu lines, translated
| Language | On the menu | Romanization | Word for word | Translation | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| French | Purée de pommes de terre | Purée of apples of the earth | Mashed potatoes | Pomme de terre (literally "earth apple") is simply a potato. On French menus, pommes on its own can mean potatoes (pommes sautées) or apples (tarte aux pommes); the rest of the dish tells you which. | |
| Spanish | Menú del día: primero, segundo, postre, pan y bebida | Menu of the day: first, second, dessert, bread and drink | Fixed-price set lunch: a starter, a main course, dessert, bread and a drink | Here menú means a set meal, not the menu itself; the full menu is la carta. It's mostly a weekday-lunch offer and often the best value in the house. | |
| Italian | Coperto | Cover (place setting) | Cover charge, per person | A fixed charge per person for bread and the table setting. It isn't a tip, and it should be printed on the menu, so check before you sit down. Rome and the rest of Lazio don't allow it. | |
| Japanese | お通し | otōshi | Pass-through | A small starter served automatically, charged per person | Usual in izakaya (Japanese pubs): a little dish arrives without being ordered and appears on the bill as a table charge. It's a custom, not a mistake on the bill. |
| Greek | Χωριάτικη σαλάτα | Choriátiki saláta | Village salad | Greek salad: tomato, cucumber, onion, green pepper, olives and a slab of feta | This is what English menus call a Greek salad. A traditional choriátiki has no lettuce. |
| Portuguese | Prego no pão | Nail in the bread | A thin, garlicky beef steak in a bread roll | Prego means "nail", but at a Portuguese snack bar it's a steak sandwich and a lunch-counter classic. | |
| Thai | ผัดกะเพราหมูสับ ไข่ดาว | phat kaphrao mu sap khai dao | Stir-fry holy basil pork chopped, egg star | Minced pork stir-fried with holy basil and chilli, with a fried egg on top | Khai dao ("star egg") is a fried egg. This is one of Thailand's most common one-plate meals and is usually spicy; mai phet means "not spicy". |
False friends
| On the menu | Looks like | Usually means | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| carta | a card or a letter | the menu | La carta, por favor = the menu, please. Menú on its own usually means a fixed-price set meal. |
| entrée | the main course (as in American English) | the starter | The main course in France is the plat. |
| peperoni | pepperoni sausage | bell peppers | For a pizza with spicy salami, look for diavola or salame piccante. |
| Menü | the menu | a set meal of several courses | The menu itself is the Speisekarte, or just Karte. |
| tortilla | a corn or flour flatbread | in Spain, a thick potato omelette | In Mexico and Central America a tortilla is the flatbread. In Spain, tortilla española is the omelette. |
| バイキング baikingu | Vikings | an all-you-can-eat buffet | You'll see it on hotel breakfast signs and buffet restaurants. |
| pastel | a pastel colour | a pastry or a fried savoury snack | Pastel de nata is a custard tart; pastel de bacalhau is a fried salt-cod cake. |
How to translate the menu
- Install MenuGuide. Get MenuGuide from the App Store (iPhone and iPad, iOS 16.4 or later) or Google Play (Android 7.0 or later). You don't need an account, and you can try the built-in sample Italian menu before you're at the table.
- Confirm your language and currency. Choose the language you want menus in (English or any of the 49 languages the app translates into) and the currency you think in. If you like, add your allergies and diets: they're stored on your phone and used to flag dishes that may not suit you.
- Photograph the menu. Take a photo of one menu page, or pick a photo from your gallery. Hold the phone parallel to the page, fill the frame and avoid glare. Before your first scan the app asks for your permission, because the photo is processed online.
- Read the dishes. Every dish appears in English with its original name underneath, a photo of that dish (a web photo of the dish, not one taken at this restaurant), its ingredients, estimated calories and allergen and diet flags. Prices are converted to your currency.
- Build your order. Add the dishes you want. MenuGuide shows your order in the menu's language, so you can show it to the waiter, share it, or tap Speak My Order and let the app read it aloud.
- Come back to it later. The translated menu is saved in History on your phone, so you can look at it again when you return for dinner or want to remember what you ate.
Your options at a glance
There are four practical ways to read a menu in a language you don't speak. Each suits a different situation.
- A menu-translator app such as MenuGuide. Built for menus: you get each dish with a name in your language, the original name, a photo of the dish, likely ingredients and allergens, and the price converted to your currency, and you can build your order in the menu's language. MenuGuide is free to try with a limited number of scans a day; Premium removes the limits. It needs an internet connection.
- Google Lens or the Google Translate camera. Free and quick: point the camera and the translated text appears over the menu. If you download the language in advance, the Google Translate app can translate camera text without a connection. It translates the text on the page, so a dish name can come out literally or stay as it is, and it doesn't know your allergies, so it won't flag dishes for you. For some restaurants listed on Google Maps, Lens can also show photos and reviews of popular dishes, and where Google's AI Mode is available you can ask questions about a photo of the menu.
- A general AI assistant (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and others). You can upload a photo of the menu and ask questions about it in a chat. Good for explanations; comparing dishes and prices means scrolling through a conversation.
- Ask for an English menu. Many restaurants in tourist areas have one. It can be shorter than the local menu, and the specials board or the dish of the day usually stays in the local language.
We make MenuGuide, so read this list with that in mind: the free tools are genuinely useful, and the best choice depends on whether you need words or answers.
What a word-by-word translation gets wrong
Menus are full of names, not descriptions. A literal translation of pommes de terre ("apples of the earth"), huevos rotos ("broken eggs") or zuppa inglese ("English soup") tells you nothing about what lands on the plate.
Some words also mean something different on a menu than in a dictionary. In Spain menú is a fixed-price meal, not the menu; in France an entrée is a starter, not the main course; in Italy peperoni are bell peppers. The examples on this page show the gap between the literal reading and what you'd actually be served. A good menu translation closes it by telling you what the dish is, not just what its name means.
How to take a menu photo that translates well
The translation can only be as good as the photo. Four habits make the biggest difference:
- Hold the phone parallel to the page. A tilted shot bends the lines of text and makes small print harder to read.
- Fill the frame with one page. Photograph a multi-page menu one page at a time instead of the whole spread from far away.
- Use good light and avoid glare. Laminated menus and glass-covered boards reflect lamps and windows. Tilt the menu slightly or move until the reflection is off the text, and turn off the flash if it bounces back.
- Keep it sharp. Rest your elbows on the table and tap the screen to focus on the text before you take the photo.
If the specials are on a separate card or a board, photograph them on their own.
Handwritten menus, chalkboards and daily specials
Daily specials are often the best food in the house and the hardest part of the menu to translate: they're handwritten, abbreviated and change every day.
Neat handwriting usually translates well. Stylised chalk lettering, faded marker and cramped boards are harder for any translator, app or human. Get close enough that the board fills the frame, photograph it straight on rather than from below, and split a large board into two photos. If a dish still makes no sense, point at it and ask: "What is this?" is in every one of our ordering-phrase guides.
Prices, currencies and charges
Prices are written differently around the world, and a few charges catch visitors out:
- Decimal commas. In most of continental Europe 12,50 means twelve and a half euros. In Japan 1,200円 means one thousand two hundred yen.
- Ambiguous symbols. "$" stands for the US dollar but also for the Mexican, Argentine, Chilean and Colombian pesos, among others. MenuGuide can use the country you're in (optional, country only) to read such prices correctly and convert them to your currency, or you can set the currency yourself.
- Prices by weight. Fish and big steaks are often priced per kilo or per 100 g (al kg, /hg or S.Q. in Italy, por kilo in Spain), so the plate costs more than the number on the menu.
- Market price. S/M (según mercado) in Spain and 時価 (jika) in Japan mean the price depends on the day's catch or market. Ask before you order.
- Cover and bread charges. Italy's coperto (not allowed in Rome and Lazio), Portugal's couvert (charged only if you eat it) and Japan's otōshi are charges for bread, nibbles or a small starter. None of them is a tip.
Translating a menu when you have allergies
A translated dish name doesn't tell you what's in the sauce. Pesto usually contains pine nuts, many Thai dishes use fish sauce or peanuts, and Japanese broths are often made with fish stock (dashi).
MenuGuide lists the likely ingredients of every dish and flags dishes that may contain the allergens you've chosen (9 allergens) or clash with your diet (7 diets). Allergen and calorie details are AI estimates based on the menu and typical recipes. They can be incomplete — if you have a serious allergy, always check with the staff.
Our ordering-phrase guides show how to say "I'm allergic to…" in eight languages.
What happens to your menu photo
To translate a menu, the photo goes to MenuGuide's server and AI providers (Google Gemini via OpenRouter, with OpenAI as a fallback). The app asks before your first scan.
Allergies and diet are stored on your phone and sent with a scan only so matching dishes can be flagged. Location is optional, country only, and used only while the app is open, to read prices in the right currency. There's no account and no data sales, and you can erase everything in Settings at any time. Details are in the privacy policy.
Menu guides by country
Every cuisine has its own menu structure, charges and traps. Before a trip, read the guide for where you're going: Italy, Spain, France, Japan, Greece, Portugal, Thailand and Mexico.
Dishes to know
Frequently asked questions
How do I translate a menu to English?
Take a photo of the menu with a menu-translator app. In MenuGuide you photograph one page and every dish appears in English with its original name, a photo of the dish, likely ingredients and allergens, and the price in your currency. For a quick translation of the words, Google Lens or the Google Translate camera also works, and in tourist areas you can ask the staff for an English menu.
Can I translate a menu from a photo?
Yes. Menu-translator apps and camera translators both work from a photo, whether you take it at the table or pick one from your gallery, such as a menu posted outside the restaurant. Hold the phone parallel to the page, fill the frame with one page and avoid glare from lamps or windows: a sharp, flat photo gives the most accurate translation.
Is there a free menu translator?
Yes. Google Translate and Google Lens are free and translate the words on a menu through your camera. MenuGuide is free to try, with no account and no card: you get a built-in sample menu and a limited number of menu scans each day, and long menus show the first dishes on the free plan. Premium unlocks unlimited scans and every dish; your local price is shown in the App Store or Google Play before you pay.
Can Google Translate translate a menu?
Yes. Point the Google Translate camera or Google Lens at the menu and the translated text appears over it, for free; the Translate app's camera also works without a connection if you download the language first. It translates the text as written, so a dish name can come out literally or stay as it is, and it won't flag dishes against your allergies. A menu app adds dish photos, ingredients and prices in your currency.
How do I translate a menu offline?
Download the menu's language in Google Translate before your trip: its camera translation then works without a connection. MenuGuide can't translate offline, because it needs the internet to read the photo. Menus you've already translated stay in History on your phone, so if you expect to lose signal, scan the menu while you're still online or ask for the restaurant's Wi-Fi.
Which app translates menus best?
It depends on what you need. For a free, quick translation of the words, Google Translate or Lens is hard to beat, and the Translate app works offline with downloaded languages. If you want to know what each dish actually is, with a photo, ingredients, possible allergens, the price in your currency and an order in the waiter's language, a dedicated menu app such as MenuGuide does more. We make MenuGuide, so weigh our view accordingly.
Can I rely on a translated menu if I have food allergies?
Use it as a first filter, not as the final word. A translation can't see what goes into a sauce, and recipes vary from one restaurant to the next. MenuGuide flags dishes that may contain the allergens you've chosen, but these flags are AI estimates based on the menu and typical recipes and can be incomplete. If you have a serious allergy, always check with the staff before you order.
Can a menu translator read handwritten menus?
Usually, if the writing is clear. Printed menus translate most reliably; neat handwriting and chalkboards usually work too, while stylised lettering, faded marker or a board photographed from far away can cause mistakes. Get close, photograph the board straight on, and ask the staff about any dish that still doesn't make sense.
