Build your menu.

Your menu is not just a list of dishes with prices. It is the thing the AI reads to answer every guest question and to suggest the right plate at the right moment. A weak menu makes the AI vague. A good one makes it sound like your best server on their best night, and a good description earns you extra revenue on orders you would otherwise have missed.

The five steps to a menu the AI can sell from

1. Open the Menu tab

   Everything lives in one place. Open the Menu tab in your dashboard and you will see your categories down the side and your items inside each one. This is the single screen you will come back to whenever the kitchen changes something, so it is worth knowing your way around it.

2. Start with clear categories

   Your items are grouped into familiar sections such as Starters, Mains, Sides, Desserts, and Drinks. Categories help guests browse and give the AI useful context, so keep each one specific and avoid catch-all sections such as “Other”. If you sync from a POS, Voitly imports the category structure from that system.

   Menu ManagerCategories

   Starters 8 items Mains 14 items Sides 6 items Desserts 5 items Drinks 18 items

3. Add an item

   Inside a category, add an item and fill in the name, the price, a description, any allergens, and the vegetarian or vegan flags. The first four fields take seconds. The description is where the money is, so the next step is all about it.

4. Write a description that sells

   Here is the difference in plain terms. A weak description reads "pasta dish." It tells the AI nothing, so the AI says nothing. A strong description reads "hand-rolled pasta, 24-hour ragu, our most ordered main." Now the AI can answer "what is good tonight?" with a real recommendation, mention that it is your most popular plate, and turn a browser into an order. Write every line as if a curious guest just asked your server about it.

   ITEM DESCRIPTIONHand-rolled pappardelle, 24-hour beef ragu, parmesan and parsley. Our most ordered main.

   →

   VOITLY AI REPLY“The beef ragu is our most popular main. It is slow-braised for 24 hours and served with hand-rolled pasta.”

5. Save, and it is live

   Hit save and the change is live instantly. The next guest who calls your line or scans a code sees the new item and the AI can talk about it right away. There is no publish step, no waiting, and no need to tell anyone. What you save is what your guests get on the very next order.

Menu best practices that make the AI order accurately

The five steps get your menu online. These habits are what separate an AI that takes every order right from one that fumbles a customization or charges for the wrong thing. They each cost a few minutes when you build the item, and they pay you back on every order that item ever takes. Run through them once and your menu is built the way the AI reads best.

1. Give every item a description

   Even the simple ones. The description is how the AI knows what a dish actually is and what a guest might call it when they ask for it out loud. An item with a blank description is a dish the AI can barely talk about and can easily mix up with another. A line or two is enough, but never leave it empty.

2. Add every modifier your kitchen really offers

   Proteins, dressings, “no onions”, extra cheese, sizes, spice levels, cooking preferences, and side swaps should exist in the source menu your kitchen actually uses. When a POS is connected, that usually means building and maintaining modifiers in the POS first, then syncing the menu into Voitly. If “extra avocado” is not represented in the source system, the AI cannot reliably place and price it on the ticket.

   POS modifier groupChicken Plate

   Choose a size Required · select 1RegularLarge +£3.00

   Choose two sides Required · select 2RiceFriesSlawSalad

   Extras OptionalAvocado +£2.00Extra chicken +£4.00

3. Keep default ingredients separate from paid add-ons

   Put what the dish comes with in one option group, and the extras a guest pays for in another. If you mix them together, the AI can accidentally add a paid extra when a guest just says "the usual way" or reads back the things that are already in the dish. Two clean groups, one for "comes with" and one for "add for a charge", keeps the order right and the price right.

   INCLUDED BY DEFAULT✓ Lettuce✓ Tomato✓ Onion✓ House sauce

   PAID EXTRAS+ Bacon £1.50+ Avocado £2.00+ Extra cheese £1.00

4. Name the choices in the description when an item needs one

   If a dish makes the guest pick something, spell the options out in the description, for example "choose Pork, Chicken, or Sausage." When a guest says something loose like "the sausage one", the AI matches it straight to the right item and the right required choice, instead of guessing between two dishes that read almost the same on the screen.

5. Make one item with size as a modifier, not three items

   Do not list "Small Tea", "Medium Tea", and "Large Tea" as three separate items. Create one "Tea" and put the sizes in a size option group. Guests think about what they want first and the size second, so that is how they ask for it, and it keeps your menu short and the AI quick to find the match. The same goes for any portion or quantity variant of the same dish.

   Small Sweet TeaMedium Sweet TeaLarge Sweet Tea

   →

   Sweet TeaSize · requiredSmallMediumLarge

6. Give every item a name that stands clearly apart

   Two items should differ by more than word order, capitalization, or a size or number word. "Chicken Burger" and "Burger Chicken", or "2 Tacos" and "Two Tacos", sound like the same thing to a guest saying it and read like the same thing to the AI. Make each name distinct enough that there is only ever one obvious match for what the guest said.

7. Build around what is included, not what to remove

   In your POS, prefer an “included by default” option group over a separate “Remove ingredients” list. “Comes with lettuce, tomato, and onion”, with each ingredient removable, is clearer than options named “No lettuce” and “No onion”. Build the dish as it normally arrives; the AI can then understand what stays and what the guest wants removed.

8. Help the AI recognize and say every name

   Guests do not always use the name on your menu, and some of your best dishes are hard to say. A few small additions fix both:

   • Add the nicknames guests use. List the common alternative names on an item so "soda" finds your "Soft Drink" and "fries" finds your "French Fries".
   • Spell abbreviations out in full. Write "Barbecue" not "BBQ" and "with" not "w/", so the AI reads them and says them the way a person would.
   • Add a phonetic spelling for exotic or foreign names. Put the sound in brackets, for example "Pho (fuh)" or "Bruschetta (broo-sket-ta)", so the AI says it the way your guests do and recognizes it when they say it back.

   MENU NAMEKhao Pad SapparotThai pineapple fried rice

   PRONUNCIATION NOTE“cow pad sap-pa-rot”Also called pineapple fried rice

   ◖))

Allergens, dietary flags, and availability

Each item can be flagged for common allergens including gluten, dairy, eggs, fish, shellfish, nuts, soya, and celery, plus vegetarian and vegan status. This gives the AI the structured information it needs to answer more carefully. Keep it complete and current, but never describe the system as a substitute for your kitchen's allergen procedure: recipes, cross-contamination, and supplier changes still need human confirmation.

Availability: hide a sold-out dish in real time

Every item has an availability toggle. Flip it off and the dish disappears from what the AI offers, in real time, on every channel at once. The guest never sees it, the AI never suggests it, and nobody orders something the kitchen cannot make. Flip it back on when you are restocked and it returns just as fast.

Specials: give the AI a dish to push tonight

Add the dish, description, and price in Tonight's Specials and the AI can proactively mention it when a guest asks what is good. Specials are ideal for a chef feature, limited stock, or a dish you are testing before it earns a permanent place. Remove the special when the service or offer ends so it is no longer promoted.

Connect your POS and keep one source of truth

On the Restaurant and Multi / Pro plans, open Dashboard → POS Integrations to connect Square, Toast, or Foodics. Choose the exact restaurant branch, test the connection, then pull the menu into Voitly. Re-running a sync updates matched categories and items instead of creating duplicates. Items that were previously imported but have since disappeared from the POS are marked unavailable rather than deleted, preserving order history.

Recommended POS workflow

1. Clean the menu in the POS first

   Fix duplicate names, descriptions, sizes, required choices, defaults, paid extras, and unavailable products in the system your team already maintains.

2. Connect the correct branch

   Multi-location accounts should confirm the branch name before syncing. A perfectly structured menu from the wrong location is still the wrong menu.

3. Sync and review the summary

   Check the imported category and item counts, then open Menu Manager and spot-check prices, descriptions, images, and availability.

4. Enable order push and place a test order

   Order one item with a required choice, one paid extra, and one removed ingredient. Confirm the exact choices and total appear correctly in the POS and kitchen workflow.

5. Watch POS status on live orders

   Orders show whether the POS push is syncing, synced, or failed. Transient failures retry automatically; use Retry POS when a ticket needs an immediate manual retry.

Run a voice-style menu test before going live

A menu is not finished when it looks tidy on screen. It is finished when a rushed guest can say an imperfect order and the correct ticket reaches the kitchen. Test the language people actually use, not just the exact menu labels.

What to read next

Your menu is ready for the AI to read. Now see where the orders go and how the AI talks about your dishes:

• Orders and kitchen display and watch every order land on the kitchen screen.
• Languages and AI personality and shape how the AI describes the menu you just built.