Menu in French: La Carte, Le Menu and How to Read One

Quick answer: the word for a menu in French is la carte when you mean the printed list of dishes, so you ask for “La carte, s’il vous plaît.” Le menu exists too, but in France it usually means a fixed-price set meal of two or three courses. A typical French menu runs from entrées (starters) to plats (main courses), fromages (cheeses) and desserts.

That one difference explains most of the confusion visitors have in French restaurants. English borrowed the word “menu” from French, then gave it a wider meaning. This guide covers what each word means, how a French menu is laid out, the cooking terms worth learning, and a quick way to translate the rest with your phone.

How do you say menu in French?

There are three words you will see on the board outside almost any restaurant in France.

If you ask for “le menu”, most servers will understand that you want to see the list. You may also be asked which set meal you would like, so “la carte” is the clearer choice. Ordering à la carte means picking individual dishes from the full list instead of taking a set meal.

In Quebec the usage is closer to English. People say “le menu” for the list, and the fixed-price meal is called la table d’hôte.

How is a French menu organized?

A French menu follows the order of the meal. The section names are short, and one of them is a false friend for American readers.

A set meal is often written as a short formula, such as “Entrée + Plat” or “Entrée + Plat + Dessert”, with one price beside it. The words au choix mean you choose one item from the options listed. Ou means “or” and et means “and”, which matters when a line reads “fromage ou dessert”.

What do French cooking terms on a menu mean?

These French menu terms describe how a dish is prepared. Learn them and you can read most lines without help.

Add a few ingredient words and whole dishes open up. The most useful are poulet (chicken), bœuf (beef), porc (pork), agneau (lamb), veau (veal), canard (duck), poisson (fish), fruits de mer (seafood), crevettes (shrimp), moules (mussels), œuf (egg), champignons (mushrooms), légumes (vegetables) and pommes de terre (potatoes). So “poulet rôti” is roast chicken, and “saumon fumé” is smoked salmon.

If you order steak, the server will ask “Quelle cuisson ?” which means “How would you like it cooked?” The answers are bleu (very rare), saignant (rare), à point (medium rare to medium) and bien cuit (well done).

Which French menu words confuse visitors most?

A few names do not mean what an English speaker would guess.

• Entrée: a starter, never the main course.
• Steak tartare: raw minced beef with seasoning, served cold.
• Ris de veau: veal sweetbreads, not rice. Rice is riz.
• Andouillette: a strong sausage made from tripe.
• Crudités: raw vegetables, usually as a starter.
• Pommes frites: fries. Pommes alone means apples, but here it is short for pommes de terre.
• Confit de canard: a duck leg cooked slowly in duck fat, then crisped.
• Moules marinières: mussels steamed with white wine, shallots and parsley.
• Croque-monsieur: a toasted ham and cheese sandwich. A croque-madame adds a fried egg on top.

Regional dishes and proper names often translate literally and tell you little. When that happens, read the ingredients listed under the dish name or ask the server.

How do I translate a French menu with my phone camera?

Printed French uses the Latin alphabet, accents included, so a camera translator reads it well. Here is how to do it with AI Translate:

1. Before your trip, open the app and download the French language pack (about 30 MB) while you have Wi-Fi.
2. Set the language pair to French and English.
3. Open the Text tab and point the camera at the menu.
4. Read the English translation drawn over the original text, block by block.
5. Tap Freeze to hold the frame still while you read.

If you already photographed the menu, tap the gallery button on the camera screen and choose the photo. The recognized text is translated and shown in a sheet at the bottom of the screen, where you can copy it. The translation appears in that sheet, not over the photo.

Printed menus give the best results. Many French bistros write the daily menu by hand on a chalkboard, and handwriting is hard for any text recognition to read. If a line comes out wrong, type the dish name into the Translate tab instead. Our guide on how to translate a picture has more tips for difficult photos.

Once the French pack is downloaded, the camera, photo import and typed translation all work in airplane mode. Voice input is the exception, because it relies on your phone’s own speech recognition, which may need a connection. See how offline translation works for details. The free plan covers your chosen language pair with 15 translations a day, and Premium starts at $1.99 a month.

What should I say when ordering in French?

A few phrases cover most of a meal. Type one into the Translate tab and tap the speaker button to hear it read aloud.

Use végétarien if you are a man and végétarienne if you are a woman. For a serious allergy, show the written sentence to the server as well as saying it.

What do the small notes on a French menu mean?

The fine print at the bottom changes what you pay and what arrives.

• Service compris: service is included in the price. This is standard in France, so a tip is optional.
• Prix nets: prices include tax and service.
• Supplément: an extra charge for that item, often inside a set meal.
• Boisson comprise: a drink is included.
• Selon arrivage: depends on what was delivered that day, common for fish.
• Sur place / À emporter: eat in / take away.

Travelling on to Spain? Our Spanish menu guide covers the same ground for menus in Spanish.

Next step

Once you know that la carte is the list and le menu is the set meal, a French menu becomes much easier to read. For more on translating French signs, menus and labels with your camera, including offline use, visit the French translator page.