Menus

A menu can begin as a simple list of planned dishes and grow into a fully costed set of recipes.

Create or import

Open Menus and choose one of three paths:

• build a menu manually;
• import a PDF, spreadsheet, CSV, text file, or photo;
• describe the event and menu to the AI assistant.

For AI generation, include the service style, guest count, number of courses, dietary restrictions, cuisine, and budget direction.

Segments and dishes

Use segments for courses, stations, meal periods, or operational groups. Inside a segment you can add:

• a planned dish that has no technical sheet yet;
• an existing recipe from your library;
• a generated recipe created from the planned dish.

A planned dish can also show a selling price without requiring a complete recipe immediately.

Generate recipes in batches

Use batch generation when several planned dishes need technical sheets. Select the dishes, generate candidates, review them, then save. On the Free plan, generation and saving follow recipe limits and may run one recipe at a time.

Edit safely

Menu title, description, segments, planned rows, linked recipes, and visible prices can be edited from the menu workspace. Removing a recipe from a menu is different from deleting it permanently from the recipe library; read the confirmation carefully.

Project behavior

When you add a menu to another project, Heard Chef copies it so edits in the new project do not alter the source menu. Recipes referenced by the menu remain reusable and use the destination project's price context when opened there.

Price and export

Use price refresh to resolve missing ingredient costs for linked recipes. Review the menu's financial summary and visible total before export. The PDF preview uses only rows configured to appear in the menu output.

Next: Shopping lists.