Translate a menu

How to translate a French menu to English

French → English

To translate a French menu to English, photograph it with a menu-translator app such as MenuGuide: each dish appears in English with the French name underneath, a photo of the dish, likely ingredients and the price in your currency. French menus add a few traps of their own: an entrée is a starter, a menu is a set meal, and a steak cooked à point is pinker than many English speakers expect.

Updated 8 October 2026

Real menu lines, translated

On the menu	Word for word	Translation	Note
Formule entrée + plat ou plat + dessert	Formula entry + dish or dish + dessert	Set price for a starter and a main, or a main and a dessert	The entrée is the starter and the plat the main course. A formule is a shorter, cheaper set menu, often offered only at lunch.
Entrecôte, cuisson : bleu, saignant, à point, bien cuit	Between-rib, cooking: blue, bleeding, to the point, well cooked	Rib-eye steak, cooked very rare, rare, medium (pink in the middle) or well done	France has four levels where English has five or six, and French steaks run rarer than in the UK or the US: à point is pink in the middle, somewhere between medium-rare and medium. If you want no pink at all, ask for bien cuit.
Croque-monsieur, salade verte	Crunch-mister, green salad	Toasted ham-and-cheese sandwich, often topped with béchamel, with a green salad	Croque comes from croquer, "to crunch". A croque-madame is the same sandwich with a fried egg on top.
Île flottante	Floating island	Soft poached meringue floating on vanilla custard, with caramel	The custard is crème anglaise, a thin pouring custard. The dessert is made with eggs and milk.
Andouillette AAAAA, sauce moutarde	Little andouille AAAAA, mustard sauce	Coarse pork tripe sausage with mustard sauce	It looks like an ordinary sausage but tastes strongly of offal. The AAAAA label comes from an association of andouillette lovers (Association amicale des amateurs d'andouillette authentique).
Fromage blanc, coulis de fruits rouges	White cheese, flow of red fruits	Fresh soft cheese with a red-berry sauce	Fromage blanc is a smooth fresh cheese, eaten as a dessert much like thick yogurt. Fruits rouges are red berries such as strawberries, raspberries and redcurrants.
Salade frisée aux lardons, œuf poché	Curly salad with lards, poached egg	Frisée lettuce with crisp bacon pieces and a poached egg	Lardons are small pieces of bacon, not lard. In Lyon this bistro classic is called salade lyonnaise.
Prix nets, service compris	Net prices, service understood	Prices are final and include service	In France, menu prices include taxes and service. A tip is optional: leave a few euros if you were happy.

False friends

On the menu	Looks like	Usually means	Note
menu	the menu	a fixed-price set meal	The full list of dishes is la carte; ordering à la carte means choosing dishes individually.
plat	a plate, or something flat	the main course (or simply a dish)	Plat du jour is the dish of the day.
chips	chips, as in British fries	crisps (potato chips)	Fries are frites.
cidre	apple cider, the non-alcoholic American kind	alcoholic cider	Brut is dry; doux is sweeter and usually a little lower in alcohol.
jus	fruit juice	on a meat or fish dish, the pan juices or a light gravy	Magret de canard, jus au porto: duck breast with a port-wine jus.
raisins	raisins	grapes	Raisins are raisins secs.
un crème	a cream	an espresso with steamed milk	Un café is an espresso; un café allongé is a longer, milder black coffee.

How to translate the menu

Set English and your currency. Confirm English and your currency in MenuGuide. Prices are in euros in France and Belgium, in Swiss francs in Switzerland and in Canadian dollars in Quebec.
Photograph the carte and the slate separately. The printed carte lists the regular dishes; the formules, the plat du jour and the chef's suggestions are often chalked on a slate (ardoise) by the door or on the wall. Photograph each straight on, without glare.
Compare the formule with ordering à la carte. A formule such as entrée + plat or plat + dessert usually costs less than the same dishes ordered separately. The French names stay under each translation, so you can match them to the slate.
Check the sauces. French cooking puts butter, cream, eggs and wheat flour into many sauces. Look at the ingredients and allergen flags for each dish, and ask the staff when it matters.
Order in French. Add your dishes to the order and show it to the waiter in French, or tap Speak My Order and let the app read it aloud.

Prices in France, Belgium, Switzerland and Quebec

France and Belgium (euro). Prices use a decimal comma: 18,50 €. In France, prices on the menu include taxes (TTC) and service (service compris), and a carafe of tap water (une carafe d'eau) is free with a meal.
Set prices. Menu with a price next to it means a set meal at that price, with the included courses listed underneath. A pricier dish within a set menu carries a supplement, marked suppl.
Seafood. Oysters are priced by the half-dozen or dozen (les 6, les 12). Selon arrivage means "depending on what came in", and prix selon le marché means market price, so ask.
Switzerland (Swiss franc). Prices appear as CHF 24.50 or Fr. 24.50, with service included; rounding up is common.
Quebec (Canadian dollar). Menu prices exclude sales taxes (5% GST and 9.975% QST), which are added to the bill, and a tip of around 15% of the pre-tax amount, or more, is customary. The "$" here means Canadian dollars.

How French menus are organised

A full French meal runs entrée (starter), plat (main course), fromage (cheese) and dessert, followed by coffee. Most people order two or three of these, not all four, and cheese comes before dessert. Bistros and brasseries print the regular dishes on the carte and chalk the plat du jour and the formules on a slate; Lyon's bouchons serve their own regional repertoire.

Our guide to French menus explains the sections, regional dishes and charges in detail.

Cooking words worth knowing

Many French dish names describe the method rather than the ingredients:

à la vapeur: steamed; poêlé: pan-fried; rôti: roasted; braisé: braised;
confit: cooked slowly in its own fat (duck, pork) or, for fruit, candied;
en croûte: in a pastry crust; gratiné or au gratin: browned under the grill, often with cheese;
tartare: raw and finely chopped (beef, salmon, tuna); carpaccio: raw and thinly sliced;
fumé: smoked; maison: made in-house.

Allergens to watch for on French menus

Butter, cream and eggs are the base of many French sauces (beurre blanc, béarnaise, hollandaise); almonds and hazelnuts appear in pastries such as frangipane and praliné; and mustard, one of the 14 EU allergens, goes into many vinaigrettes. Breton galettes are made with buckwheat, which contains no gluten, but some recipes add wheat flour, so ask.

MenuGuide flags dishes that may contain the allergens you've chosen. 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.

Dishes to know

Croque-monsieur
Steak frites
Steak tartare
Bœuf bourguignon
coq au vin
Confit de canard
Magret de canard
Soupe à l'oignon
Escargots
Moules-frites
quiche lorraine
ratatouille
Bouillabaisse
Salade niçoise
Cassoulet
blanquette de veau
tartiflette
Andouillette
Foie gras
salade lyonnaise
galette bretonne
crepes
Crème brûlée
mousse au chocolat
Tarte Tatin
ile flottante
Café gourmand

Frequently asked questions

How do I translate a French menu to English?

Photograph the menu with a menu-translator app. In MenuGuide each dish appears in English with its French name underneath, a photo of the dish, likely ingredients and allergens, and the price in your currency. Photograph the chalked slate with the plat du jour and the formules separately from the printed carte, since that's where the day's best dishes usually are.

What is an entrée in France?

In France an entrée is the starter, the first course of the meal, not the main course as in American English. The main course is the plat. So a formule entrée + plat means a starter and a main course at a set price, and entrée + plat + dessert adds a dessert.

What is the difference between a menu and à la carte in France?

A menu in France is a set meal at a fixed price, with a limited choice for each course. À la carte means ordering individual dishes from the full list, la carte, each at its own price. A formule is a shorter set menu, often at lunch. The set options are usually better value if you want two or three courses.

How do I order a steak in France?

The waiter will ask "Quelle cuisson ?", meaning how you want it cooked. Bleu is barely seared, saignant is rare, à point is pink in the middle (between medium-rare and medium) and bien cuit is well done. French kitchens cook steak rarer than British or American ones, so go one level more cooked than you would at home if you don't like it red.

Is service included in France?

Yes. In France, the prices on the menu include service and taxes, which is why menus say service compris or prix nets. Tipping is optional: leaving a few euros or rounding up for good service is appreciated but not expected. In Quebec it's different, since taxes are added to the bill and a tip of around 15% or more is customary.