In a restaurant

Restaurant

A restaurant is an establishment which prepares and serves food and drink to customers in return for money. Meals are generally served and eaten on premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services...

, a menu is a presentation of food and beverage offerings. A menu may be a la carte

À la carte

À la carte is a French language loan phrase meaning "according to the menu", and used in* A reference to a menu of items priced and ordered separately, i.e. the usual operation of restaurants * To order an item from the menu on its own, e.g...

 – which guests use to choose from a list of options – or table d'hôte

Table d'hôte

Table d'hôte is a French loan phrase which literally means "host's table". It is used as restaurant terminology to indicate a menu where multi-course meals with only a few choices are charged, at a fixed total price. Such a menu may also be called prix fixe . The terms "set meal" and "set menu"...

, in which case a pre-established sequence of courses is served.

"Menu" can also be used in a more general sense, as synonymous with diet

Diet (nutrition)

In nutrition, diet is the sum of food consumed by a person or other organism. Dietary habits are the habitual decisions an individual or culture makes when choosing what foods to eat. With the word diet, it is often implied the use of specific intake of nutrition for health or weight-management...

, the selection of foods available generally to a particular location or culture.
The first restaurant menus arose roughly one millennium ago, during the Song Dynasty

Song Dynasty

The Song Dynasty was a ruling dynasty in China between 960 and 1279; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese government to establish a...

 in China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 - the only region of the world at the time where paper was abundant.