SerpApi.Org
Menus are written to persuade as much as they are to inform. The language is deliberate, the adjectives carefully chosen, and the result is that most of us order based on a description that may carry far less meaning than it appears to. Some phrases sound like genuine quality signals. Others are essentially costumes words wear to justify a higher price tag.
Knowing which is which doesn't require culinary training. It just requires a little skepticism and a willingness to ask one or two questions before committing to a dish. These five phrases appear on menus everywhere, and each one is worth a second look.
1. "Market Price"
Instead of listing a fixed price in dollars and cents, restaurants use "market price," "MP," or "MKT" so they do not have to constantly reprint their menus. There is a legitimate reason for this in some cases.
The market for wild-caught seafood is volatile and fluctuates seasonally, sometimes even weekly, but an unscrupulous restaurant could use this volatility to overcharge, which is a red flag to watch out for. The real issue is when the phrase extends beyond seafood.
If you see multiple items on a menu listed as market price, especially non-seafood items, that is a definite red flag. Beef and pork, for instance, rarely have legitimate reasons to be listed as market price.
These meats are farm-raised, and restaurants typically buy them in bulk. They can plan their menus and pricing well ahead of time.
You can ask your server the price of any item listed as market price. Many diners feel reluctant to ask, either out of embarrassment or a feeling that they would not be able to afford it since it is not listed.
Always ask anyway.
2. "Wild-Caught" (or "Wild" Anything)
Seeing the word "wild" on a menu carries a premium implication, and restaurants know that. The trouble is that verification on the diner's end is essentially impossible.
Warnings from regulators have focused on restaurants falsely promoting their seafood as "wild-caught" or "American-sourced" when, in reality, it was farm-raised and imported from foreign sources. This crackdown comes in response to increasing complaints from the U.S. seafood industry about deceptive claims made on menus and in advertisements.
The scale of the problem is striking. Research found in December 2024 that roughly four out of five restaurants tested were misleading customers, often substituting imported shrimp while marketing dishes as fresh, local Gulf seafood.
The Federal Trade Commission issued new restaurant guidance in 2024 that clearly explains that it is illegal to use decorations, menus, and social media to mislead customers about the origin of seafood served in the restaurant. The rule exists.
Enforcement is another matter entirely.
3. "Locally Sourced"
"Locally sourced" is one of the most powerful phrases in modern restaurant marketing. Over roughly three quarters of Gen Z diners and seventy percent of Baby Boomers say they are willing to pay more for dishes with locally sourced ingredients.
Restaurants are well aware of this, which means the phrase has enormous financial incentive behind it, regardless of whether it is genuinely accurate. The word "local" has no regulated definition when it appears on a restaurant menu.
It could mean the next county over or simply a regional distributor several states away. If every single vegetable has a biography explaining exactly which small farm it came from, the restaurant might be overcompensating for a lack of culinary creativity.
While knowing where your food is grown is great, excessive storytelling is often used to justify an inflated price tag for a very basic dish. The best approach is to ask a server to name the specific supplier.
A kitchen that genuinely sources locally will usually answer without hesitation.
4. "Artisanal" (and Its Cousins: "House-Made," "Craft," "Small-Batch")
You may envision a pack of wizard bakers in the kitchen kneading artisanal bread loaves for every bread basket, but the word is overused and has pretty much lost all meaning. Artisanal canned products appear on warehouse shelves.
When in doubt about the artisanship of any menu item, ask where it's actually made. The same logic applies to "house-made" sauces that arrive via a commercial food service truck, or "craft" cocktails poured from a pre-batched bag.
A University of Illinois study found that descriptive labels, be it for "grandma's soup" or any other food that has a charged word attached to it, helped increase sales by roughly a quarter. So the next time you order an artisanal cherry pie, consider if you'd want that pie if the same adjective wasn't in front of it.
The word's value is largely psychological, and restaurants have known that for a long time. That doesn't make it dishonest in every case, but it makes it worth treating with some healthy skepticism.
5. "Natural" (or "All-Natural")
The word "natural," used to describe food made without preservatives, additives, or other chemicals, is totally unregulated. There is no official standard that a dish must meet before a restaurant can describe it this way.
It can be applied to virtually any ingredient or preparation, with or without meaningful justification. Some menu phrases seem to be promising something that just isn't true, while others are only stating the obvious.
"Natural" often falls into both categories at once. It implies a standard of purity that requires no proof.
This slight deception passes undetected since diners are not necessarily examining it closely. The average guest is not fact-checking or verifying whether a claim is natural or synthetic.
Collectively, such hype contributes to a dining culture where illusion is the norm. Since transparency is so vital to hospitality, menu language needs to be held to the same standard as the food itself.
None of this means a meal described with any of these phrases is automatically bad, overpriced, or dishonest. Most restaurants operate in good faith.
Still, menus are marketing documents, and the gap between what a phrase implies and what it actually guarantees can be significant. The simplest defense a diner has is a straightforward question to their server before ordering.
A confident, specific answer is usually a good sign. Vagueness often tells you just as much as any claim printed on the page.
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