Bucatini all'amatriciana

The waiter who speaks 25 languages

He knows what's in every dish, remembers every allergen and never mixes up an order. It's your menu, on your guest's phone.

Lyusena

I built this menu because in every restaurant I used to wonder what I'd actually get.Lyusena

Open the demo menu
Notte d'OroDE
Carciofi alla giudia
Carciofi alla giudia

11 €

I'm a foreigner living in Italy. In a restaurant I read «Carciofi alla giudia», «Supplì», «Cacio e pepe» and have no idea what will arrive.

The English translation doesn't help: «Jewish-style artichokes» says nothing about how the dish tastes. I ask the waiter. He explains, but he has ten other tables. At the next table a German family gives up and orders a margherita.

I wanted a menu that explains every dish to the guest by itself, in their language. So I built one. It shows a real photo of the dish, says what's in it and warns about allergens. And the waiter gets the order ready, in Italian.

75 millionroughly the number of foreign visitors to Italy in 2025

And every one of them wants to know what they'll get in a restaurant.

Cacio e pepe in a Roman trattoria

Tick what happens at your place

Tap what sounds familiar - the answer appears underneath.

What it looks like from the other side of the table

«The menu was only in Italian... we had no idea what each dish was»

"the menu was only in Italian ... we had no idea what each dish was"

A tourist from Australia, review of a restaurant near Rome
«I understood „there's sesame in the kitchen“, but the sesame was in the bread itself»
A tourist with an allergy, Venice
«I can't always tell what a dish is from a strange English translation»
A traveller, Italy travel forum
This is how menus get translated today: fruits of wood frutti di bosco coldfish merluzzo seaside alla marinara

See the menu through your guest's eyes

This is the menu of an imaginary Roman restaurant. Everything else works for real.

  1. Choose your language at the top of the menu.
  2. Mark an allergy, for example to nuts. Dishes with nuts disappear from the menu.
  3. Pick two dishes and press «Show the waiter».
Open the demo menu

Best on a phone: that's where your guest will see it.

Carciofi alla giudia
Supplì
Carbonara
Tiramisù
Fiori di zucca

What the guest sees

Photo and ingredients

A real photo of the dish and what's in it, in plain words in the guest's language.

Allergens

All 14 EU-regulated allergens for every dish, plus one table for the whole menu.

«Show the waiter»

The guest picks dishes and the screen shows the order in Italian with the table number.

«Pick my dinner»

Three questions: how hungry, what budget, meat or fish. The answer is a full dinner with wine.

Wine for the dish

Next to each dish: the wine your chef chose and an alcohol-free drink.

How it's done in Italy

What coperto is, what order courses come in, whether you can share a dish.

copertoantipastoprimosecondocontorno

A table without a phone call

  • Guests choose the date, time and party size any time of day or night. The request shows up in your dashboard right away.
  • A group can choose dishes in advance. The list arrives with the booking.
  • For gluten-free guests it's one button, and only their dishes stay in the menu. Italy has more than 279,000 people with coeliac disease.
We'd like to try: Carciofi alla giudia, Cacio e pepe ×2, Tiramisù

You change everything yourself

  • A new price in ten seconds.
  • Dish sold out: one button and guests can't order it any more.
  • Dish of the day in one line.
  • A new dish translates itself into every language. You mark allergens from the official list.
  • Bookings and table orders in one screen.
Try the dashboard

Five minutes. The data is made up, you can't break anything.

Your dashboard
The guest's menu
Cacio e pepe14 €
Sold out today

A menu in your restaurant's style

Colours, fonts, photo style and your strengths: catch of the day, wine for each dish, allergens in large print. One system, your look. And in every look, 25 languages.

Switch the language in the phone: the menu changes to the guest's language at once. The restaurants are imaginary, the dish photos are real.

Loading examples…

Allergens: the answer before the question

By law guests must get allergen information in writing. The menu does that: for every dish, in the guest's language, with the official EU names.

For the dining room, the dashboard prints an A4 sheet: prices, allergen numbers, coperto.

You confirm the ingredients and allergens of every dish. Without your confirmation, a dish doesn't appear in the menu.

1Gluten2Crustaceans3Eggs4Fish 5Peanuts6Soy7Milk8Tree nuts 9Celery10Mustard11Sesame12Sulphites 13Lupin14Molluscs

How we start

  1. Menu and photos

    You send the menu in any form - a file, a photo or a spreadsheet - and photos of your dishes.

  2. Check

    We transfer the menu and send you the ingredients and allergens to check.

  3. QR on the tables

    You confirm and get QR codes for every table.

  4. Then it's yours

    You change the menu yourself, in your dashboard.

It usually takes one or two weeks. Everything by email.

Price

70 € a month

or 700 € a year - two months free

Menu setup290 €one-off, free with yearly payment

Setup: we transfer your menu up to 50 dishes, check allergens with you and make QR codes for the tables.

What you get every month

  • You change the menu, prices and photos yourself.
  • New dishes are translated into every language.
  • Bookings work around the clock.
  • Table orders arrive in the dashboard.
  • The menu opens fast, and guest data is stored as the law requires.
  • Everything new in the service at no extra cost.

Frequently asked questions

I don't have good photos of my dishes.

We need your real photos. We don't use computer-generated images: guests must get what they saw.

So I don't need a paper menu any more?

You do: by law prices must be displayed. The price sheet is printed from the dashboard.

We're already on TheFork.

Stay there. One doesn't get in the way of the other.

Are translations done by a machine?

Allergens use the official names from EU law in every language. Any other text you can correct yourself.

Where is guest data stored?

In Europe. Bookings are deleted 90 days after the visit.

Do I need a tablet or software?

No. The menu opens on the guest's phone.

Which languages?

25: twenty European languages plus Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic and Turkish. Guests pick their language from the list at the top of the menu.

Can I try it?

You can try the dashboard right now on an imaginary restaurant: the «Try the dashboard» button is above.

Write to me

Send me your restaurant's name. I'll reply by email and tell you what your menu will look like.

info@cartalingua.comWhatsApp: number coming soon