Plenty of restaurants serve terrific food, which by extension means they have terrific menus. Right?

Not always.

By “great menu,” I’m not talking now about food choices. I'm talking about a menu that does its job of informing the customer most readily. At its most basic level, a great menu doesn’t have misspelled words or errant apostrophes or sticky plastic covers or stains. It doesn’t whisper hostility with curt rules like “No substitutions!” (If that has to be communicated, there are gentler ways.) It neither uses too many nor too few words to describe preparations, and it describes them sensibly, with the largest part of the dish mentioned first. It organizes the menu in a way that helps the diner to order.

In short, it seeks to deliver the basic hospitality of accurate communication—in a way that serves the diner and, less visibly, the interests of the restaurant.

At the new Lark the other night, I encountered just such a menu. Here are some things it did right.

Understandable categories. There are “Starters,” “Pastas, grains, and dumplings,” and “Mains.” Running like a ticker down the side were snacks, cheeses, signature cocktails, and the good old Washington State Department of Health raw food disclaimer. Very clear, very readable.

Readable type to abet description. A pretty, unfussy font enhanced ease of scanning. The main part of the dish was written as the dish's name, in standard roman type, with the description following, in italics. As in: “Penn Cove mussels, fennel, tomato sofrito, pickled jalapeño, charred croutons.” There’s enough information there to get a sense of the flavors and textures of the dish. Descriptions under the cheeses deliver similarly useful shorthand: “Gusthofer Gouda (Goat) Netherlands / milky, salted toffee, lingering.”

Prices listed straightforwardly. On Lark’s menu, prices were given in the typical way: Following dish descriptor, no dollar sign or decimals. As in: “Eel with new potato salad, aioli, and saba 16.” This became the norm six or so years back when a study from Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration revealed that diners spent considerably more money when dollar signs were withheld from menus.

Interestingly, Lark’s casual upstairs alter ego, Bitter/Raw, does include dollar signs on its menus—likely because they best clarify which numbers represent prices, as opposed to numbers of oysters or charcuterie types. Thoughtful.

No rules. Of course the restaurant has rules; it just doesn’t junk up the menu with a dozen soul-killing injunctions against substitutions or cell phones or crying children or what have you. This enhances the diner’s sense of a restaurant’s essential good nature—which I have to believe inspires something similarly noble, at least sometimes, from the diner.

One of my favorite recent examples of the good-hearted menu comes from the dinner card at Single Shot: “We happily accommodate all dietary restrictions without ridicule whenever possible.” Lighthearted, witty, deeply accommodating. 

The smartest kind of sales. Perhaps the most amazing thing about Lark’s menu is that it’s loaded with little nuggets of self-serving information—which, since they’re also legitimately helpful for the diner, don’t come across as primarily self-serving. “Would you like to see a Dessert Menu?” it asks, helpfully, on the Bitter/Raw noshes card. “Ask Your Bartender,” it says on the Bitter/Raw drink card—at just about the time you’re looking around and realizing what a cool raftered space Bitter/Raw is. “Book Bitter/Raw for parties and events.”

Masterful.