Menu Design · Bar and kitchen

The Balcony Bar: food menu design for a bar in Indiranagar, Bengaluru

Hotkhana Media designed the food menu for The Balcony Bar on 100 Feet Road, Indiranagar, Bengaluru. Its 16 square pages run from bar bites and tandoor to Chinese, seafood, burgers, bao, pasta, pizza and desserts, with each section given a name and personality of its own.

Client: The Balcony Bar
Venue: Bar and kitchen
City: Bengaluru
Service: Menu Design
Delivered: 16-page food menu and 4 Instagram reels

Cover

The brief

The Balcony Bar's kitchen is wide-ranging: Indian tandoor and South Indian-style dishes sit beside Indo-Chinese, seafood, burgers, bao, pasta and pizza. The menu had to make a long list feel easy to browse over drinks, and carry the bar's playful personality from the cover to the last page.

Our approach

An opening with attitude

After the teal cover with the striped B logo, the menu opens on a full-page illustration of a woman with leafy hair against a tropical pattern, beside FOOD stacked in bold multicoloured letters. It sets the tone before a single dish is listed.

Sections with names, not labels

Each heading pairs a bold capital word with a handwritten script: Bar Bites, Balcony Munchies, Think Chinese, Seafood Edit, Pakka Local, Bao Wao, Rice Bowls. The names give guests something to talk about and make each section easy to find again.

Light and dark, with food on every spread

Pages switch between charcoal and white panels, and almost every spread includes a dish photograph, from cheesy wedges and tandoori platters to burgers, bao, pasta and pizza, so the long list never turns into a wall of text.

Choices made simple

A green or red veg and non-veg mark sits beside every dish. Where a dish comes in several versions, the price follows the choice: wedges by flavour, Pakka Local dishes by paneer, mushroom, chicken, mutton or prawn, and pasta by sauce with veg, chicken or seafood pricing.

Menu pages

Food menu title page with the word FOOD in stacked multicoloured letters beside an illustration of a woman with leafy green hair on a tropical pattern — Food menu title page with illustration

The Balcony Bar menu page of soups and salads with a tomato soup photograph and a salad bowl — Soups and salads

Bar Bites menu page listing wedges by flavour, peanut masala, egg bhurji and onion rings, beside a photo of cheesy wedges — Bar Bites

Balcony Munchies menu page with veg and non-veg starters in two columns and a photograph of a chicken starter — Balcony Munchies: veg and non-veg

Menu page of fish and prawn starters such as fish and chips and prawn skewers, beside a seafood photograph — Fish and prawn starters

Think Chinese menu page listing Indo-Chinese starters such as crispy paneer, chilli wings and Hunan chicken — Think Chinese

Seafood Edit menu page of fish and prawn dishes in Indo-Chinese sauces, with a seafood photograph — Seafood Edit

Tandoor menu page of vegetarian kebabs and tikkas with a photograph of a tandoori platter — Tandoor: vegetarian

Menu page of non-vegetarian tandoor dishes and the Pakka Local section of South Indian-style dishes priced by protein — Tandoor non-veg and Pakka Local

Burgers menu page with veg and non-veg burgers served with potato wedges, beside a burger photograph — Burgers

Bao Wao and sandwich menu page with steamed bao and panini, and a photograph of bao buns — Bao and sandwiches

Pasta menu page listing sauces with veg, chicken and seafood prices, beside a photo of pasta with garlic bread — Pasta

Pizza menu page with veg and chicken pizzas and a photograph of a pizza — Pizza

Rice Bowls menu page with fried rice, noodles, biryani and Thai curry, beside a fried rice photograph — Rice Bowls

Desserts menu page with brownie, crème caramel, gulab jamun and ice cream, beside a photo of a chocolate brownie — Desserts

Reels

Alongside the menu, four reels keep the bar busy on Instagram: bartending close-ups titled The perfect pour, a quick-cut cocktail for every day of the week, a Valentine's toast and a year-end reel welcoming 2024.