Translating your menu

Your menu can speak your guests’ language. Eighty-Six can show your whole menu in several languages, and it fills in the translations for you with AI. You choose which languages to offer, and you can edit or fine-tune any wording yourself. This guide shows you how.

Before you begin

Translations happen on the Menu page and in the Languages & Localization settings. Available on plans that include the Menu builder. You need permission to edit the menu to enter or adjust translations, and permission to manage restaurant settings to add or remove languages. Restaurant owners have every permission by default; an employee needs it granted by the owner.

How translations work

You always write your menu in one default language first. This is your main language and the one guests see if a translation is ever missing. For every other language you turn on, Eighty-Six adds a translation automatically.

Three things are worth knowing:

• AI fills the blanks. Any translation you leave empty is written for you by AI.
• Your edits always win. If you type your own wording for a language, Eighty-Six keeps it and never overwrites it.
• It stays in sync. When you change the original text, the AI re-translates it, except for the fields you edited by hand.

Choose which languages to offer

1. In the sidebar, open Booking Page, then open the Settings tab. (You can also click Manage languages at the top of the Menu page to jump straight here.)
2. Find the Languages & Localization card.
3. Under Default language, pick your main language.
4. Open Supported languages and tick every language you want to offer. Your default language is always included and cannot be removed.
5. Click Save Changes.

Set your default language and tick the extra languages your menu should offer.

You can offer your menu in Italian, English, German, French, Spanish and Portuguese.

Let AI translate everything

As soon as you have at least one language beyond your default, a Translate everything button appears. You will find it at the top of the Menu page, and again in the highlighted box inside Languages & Localization.

Click it once and Eighty-Six translates your entire menu into every language you offer. It fills in every blank and refreshes anything whose original text changed, while carefully leaving any wording you typed yourself untouched. When it finishes, a message tells you how many fields were translated, or that everything was already up to date.

One click translates the whole menu. Your hand-written wording is always kept.

Tip

If you just added or changed a language, click Save Changes first. The Translate everything button in the settings box waits until your language changes are saved.

Edit a single translation

You do not have to accept every AI translation. Every field that can be translated has a small Translations toggle just beneath it in the form, marked with a sparkle. Click it to expand a box for each extra language, each labelled with its flag and code, for example EN or DE.

1. Open the dish, category, note or label you want to adjust.
2. Below the field, click Translations to expand it.
3. Type your own wording in the language you want to change.

Expand Translations under any field to see and edit each language.

Inside the box, each language shows one of the following:

• An empty box with ✨ AI will translate this automatically means AI will fill it in for you.
• A Translated by AI badge means AI has written that wording. You can type over it to replace it.
• Once you type your own text, it becomes your wording. A Revert to AI link appears next to it, which discards your version and lets AI translate the field again.

What you can translate

The Translations toggle appears under these fields:

• Dishes — the name, the description, and each price variant label.
• Categories — the name and the description.
• Menu notes — the title and the body.
• Labels — the label name. The standard allergen presets are translated for you automatically, so you never type those.

Tip

Let AI do the whole first pass with Translate everything, then only touch the few names you would phrase differently, such as a house special or a dish name you would rather not translate literally. Everything you edit by hand is kept safe.

Related

• Menus overview
• Dishes, prices & variants
• Labels (allergens & dietary)
• Your booking page