Use clear descriptors when creating the title, or name, of your dish. The name should be clear for customers, but can also reflect your story and cooking style! Think about how to grab a customer's attention and entice them to order this dish from your menu. For example:

Your description should inform your customer of what they will expect to receive when ordering your dish, and make them excited to try it. What you can include in your description:

Example dish description:

A classic Mangalorean delicacy of juicy chicken, slow-roasted in an authentic blend of traditional Udupi spices. This dish relies on a fiery combination of spice and tang for the perfect culinary kick! I learned it from my grandmother who served it every Friday night over a bed of fluffy jeera rice.

Specify what type of food dish the item is, like breakfast or dinner. For larger meal-sized items, we recommend using the Dinner option.

Choose if your customers will be able to select how spicy their dish will come by clicking "Yes" or "No" from the drop down menu here.

Then select the spice level you recommend for this dish, this will be the default of how you prepare this dish. You can choose the following spice levels:

If you do offer your customer the ability to customize their spice level, you can then click on each spice level they will be able to choose from in the next row of spice icons.

For this option, you can scroll through any dishes that are on your menu and select up to 7 of your other dishes that pair well with this dish. When your customers are ordering this dish, we will encourage them to order the other dishes you recommend here.

Select up to 7 tags that best describe your dish. We use these tags to help customers find the food they are looking for when using the search bar on shef.com or even to recommend dishes based on what they tend to enjoy. You can add two types of tags:

Set the standard portion size your customer will receive. We recommend your base size being a portion that feeds one person, you will be able to add larger sized options to offer your customers after setting your base portion and price.

You can use these three measurement options for setting your base portion size:

If the item is bundled with a side, make sure that both of the components have their portions listed. For example: “12 oz of salad + 2 oz of ranch dressing”.

For our recommendations on what portion sizes to offer and what containers to package your food in, head to our Recommended Food Containers article.

We have 2 settings you can use to control which items are available on your menu on a given day. You do not need to modify these settings as a new shef.

Later on, you might use these settings to offer specialty holiday items (only available for a limited time period), or to offer different menus on different days of the week.

Choose the maximum number of orders (servings) for this item that you can offer on a single delivery day. When you have reached the maximum, the item will appear as "sold out." Remember that one customer might order multiple servings of the same item, especially for smaller side items. (We recommend choosing a number between 7-100).

Please choose a price for your dish. We recommend a price ending in either .49 or .99 (for example, $5.49 or $5.99).

Your menu prices are entirely up to you, and may be adjusted any time as you learn more about your business. Be sure to include the cost of ingredients, packaging, and other costs in your pricing considerations. Once you set a price for a dish, you may still choose to adjust the price later based on your sales and initial customer feedback.

You might sometimes choose to set a higher price for a dish that uses more expensive ingredients, or a dish that is more time-consuming or labor-intensive to cook. In this case, we recommend using the Name, Description, and Ingredients sections to highlight the reasons why this is a premium or specialty dish on your menu - think about ways to highlight these premium aspects and make the dish sound irresistible to customers!

Regardless of how you price your menu, we have found that main dishes priced under $15 and side dishes priced under $10 tend to sell more quickly, as long as the portion size is still generous.

Not sure how to start with pricing? You can type in a zip code in the top left corner of Shef.com to explore the menu prices of other shefs in your area.

Select how long your food will be safe to eat once it reaches your customer. This will be printed on the label of your food for customers to reference. The default is set to 3 days.

Please list every single ingredient so that customers can make informed choices about allergies and dietary restrictions. Please be sure to include all spices, oils, and/or fats used in the cooking process (e.g. butter, olive oil, vegetable oil, rapeseed oil, ghee).

Tips for adding your ingredients:

Things to avoid on your menu:

We offer several helpful templates for reheating instructions that you can use for your dish. Please use the drop down options to choose the template that best matches your dish, and then edit the text instructions directly if needed. If you feel your dish needs different heating instructions, you can also write your own.

Select all of the tags that apply to your dish:

Please upload a photo from your device, or drag and drop your photo into the box. If you do not have a photo ready yet, you can skip this step and come back to add a photo later. Before taking any photos of your menu items, please first read our menu photo guidelines.