How to add a dish, and the page you will come back to most. Photos, descriptions, prices, sizes, and the marks that tell people what they can eat.
In Shopify: Products → Add product
The parts that matter #
- Title. The dish name exactly as you would write it on a printed menu. Nothing else.
- Description. One or two lines. Cards show the first part of it; the dish’s own page shows all of it. Write what is in it and how it is cooked — that is what people are deciding on.
- Media. A photograph. Optionally a short video of it being finished, or a 3D model — the theme shows all of them, and puts a small mark on the ones that are not photographs so people know to click.
- Price. And, if it is ever reduced, fill in Compare-at price with the old price. The theme then shows a Sale mark and the old price crossed out, by itself.
- Tags. The dietary marks — see below.
On photographs
Save yours at about 2000 pixels on the long edge before uploading. The theme makes every smaller size it needs for phones and tablets automatically, but it cannot undo an enormous original — and an enormous original is the most common reason a restaurant site feels slow.
Getting the crop right #
Your photograph appears in a lot of shapes: wide on a card, tall on a phone, square in the gallery. If the important part of the picture is off to one side, it can get cropped out.
In Shopify: Content → Files, click the image
Drag the focal point onto the part that must always be visible. Every crop in the theme follows it from then on.
Example
A wide shot of a whole table with your signature dish at the right-hand edge. Without a focal point, the square crop on the home page shows an empty tablecloth. Drag the focal point onto the dish and every crop keeps it.
Dietary marks #
These are Shopify tags, spelled exactly like this. Anything else you tag a dish with is ignored by the theme, so you can use tags for your own filing as well.
| Type this tag | The diner sees |
|---|---|
vegan | Vegan |
vegetarian | Vegetarian |
gluten-free | Gluten free |
spicy | Spicy |
contains-nuts | Contains nuts |
popular | A Popular badge on the dish’s photograph |
Sizes and portions #
If a dish comes in more than one size, add them as Variants.
On the product page: Variants → Add options like size or colour
- Name the option — Portion, or Size.
- Add the values — Regular, Large.
- Give each one its price.
The theme shows these as a list of choices, priced by what each one adds rather than by its full price — because that is the question a diner is actually asking.
Example
Regular at £14 and Large at £18 is shown as Regular — Included and Large — +£4.00. The diner reads the difference instead of doing the subtraction.
If you have taken a photograph of each size, attach it to that variant in Shopify. Choosing a size then changes the picture too.
Sold out #
When you set a dish’s stock to zero — or mark a size unavailable — the theme handles it: the card says Unavailable instead of offering an add button, and that size appears in the list crossed through as Sold out rather than disappearing, so people can see it exists and ask about it tomorrow.
