In hard times, more
restaurants focus on
menu psychology.

By SARAH KERSHAW

Chicken liver is what the restaurateur Danny Meyer calls a torpedo.

Left to its own devices, it may be unappetizing and unpopular, but when paired with what he calls an enhancer - applewood smoked bacon in the case of the chicken liver on the menu at Tabla, Mr. Meyer’s Indian fusion restaurant in Manhattan’s Flatiron District - it not only excites the taste buds but goes to work on the mind.

The name of the Tabla appetizer, Boodie’s Chicken Liver Masala, draws even deeper from the field of menu psychology because Boodie is the mother of Floyd Cardoz, Tabla’s executive chef. People like the names of mothers, grandmothers and relatives on their menus, and research shows they are much more likely to buy Grandma’s zucchini cookies, burgers freshly ground at Uncle Sol’s butcher shop and Aunt Phyllis’s famous wedge salad.

After Tabla merged with its downstairs sibling, the Bread Bar at Tabla, in October, Mr. Meyer and his team spent months pondering such matters before unveiling a new menu in December.

Tabla is just one of the many restaurants around the United States that are revising their menus. Hurt by the recession, they are hoping that some magic combination of prices, adjectives, fonts, type sizes, ink colors and placement on the page can coax diners into spending a little more.

“There is constant tinkering going on right now with menus and menu pricing,” said Sheryl E. Kimes, a professor of hospitality management at the Cornell School of Hotel Administration. “A lot of creative things are going on because the restaurants are trying to hold on for dear life to make sure they get through this.”

The price of Boodie’s chicken livers, for example, is $9, written simply as 9. This is a friendly and manageable number . Besides, it has no dollar sign. In the world of menu engineering , a dollar sign is pretty much the worst thing you can put on a menu, particularly at a high-end restaurant. Not only will it scream “Hello, you are about to spend money!” into a diner’s tender psyche, but it can feel aggressive and look tawdry.

The use of menu engineers and consultants is exploding in the casual dining arena and among national chains, a sector of the business that has been especially pinched by the economy. In response, they are tapping into a growing body of research into the science of menu pricing and writing, hoping the way to a diner’s heart is not only through the stomach, but through the unconscious.

Huddle House, a family-dining chain with more than 400 restaurants in 17 states, is introducing a test menu at 20 restaurants. The company hired Gregg Rapp, a menu engineer and consultant who said he had been “taking dollar signs off menus for 25 years.”

“We can’t do much of a price increase, yet we’re searching for ways to increase our profit for the franchises,” said Susan Franck, vice president of marketing for the chain. “If you have a signature item, make a logo for it, put more copy to it, romance the description with smokehouse bacon, country ham or farm fresh eggs.”

She said the chain took dollar signs off the menu in 2007, and now on the test menu, instead of an omelet and orange juice, there is “the light and fluffy Heavenly Omelet” and “Minute Maid orange juice.”

Some restaurants use what researchers call decoys. For example, they may place a really expensive item at the top of the menu, so that other dishes look more reasonably priced; research shows that diners tend to order neither the most nor least expensive items, drifting toward the middle.

In contemplating the Tabla menu, Mr. Cardoz said he and Mr. Meyer decided there were too many unusual Indian terms that were alienating customers, so they kept only the most recognizable words, like tandoori, paneer and tikka.

“We thought long and hard about the psychology because this is a complete relaunch of a restaurant entirely through its menu and through the psychology of the menu,” Mr. Meyer said. “The chefs write the music and the menu becomes the lyrics, and sometimes the music is gorgeous and it’s got the wrong lyrics and the lyrics can torpedo the music.”

DAVID PLUNKERT