When the Menu Becomes the Brand: Norbert Meyer, Resort Manager, The Anam Cam Ranh

How The Colonial turns French technique, Vietnamese ingredients, and guest expectations into a distinctive dining experience

How do you ensure the menu reflects the identity and positioning of your property or brand?

The Colonial Restaurant offers an exquisite fine dining experience that harmoniously blends classical French cuisine with Vietnamese culinary nuances. Designed in the elegant Indochine style, the restaurant features an open kitchen, a grand piano, and a lush garden courtyard, creating a sophisticated ambiance for guests ​

Under the guidance of Executive Chef Duy Anh Nguyen, The Colonial has introduced a six-course degustation menu that celebrates Vietnam's rich ingredients through refined French techniques. The menu is always part of the brand and follows therefore the brand/ restaurant statement.

The menu content, language style, pricing and design of the menu must be in accordance with the statement and match the typical guests including their preferences, expectations, budgets, experiences, culture, habits. The guests and the profitability of each dish must be always in the center of considerations/ decision making.

Colonial Chef creates/ selects/ modifies the recipes according to the restaurant statement and ensures that the ingredients, preparation and presentation is matching the statement “classic French with Vietnamese nuances”.

A menu draft is then open for feedback, discussion with selected senior management team members. Chef and his team prepare dishes for tasting. Amendments taking place based on comments after tasting. The meu is ready for the implementation process.

How involved are you in menu decisions — and where do you draw the line between roles?

Involved in reviewing the menu draft, the food presentation, the pricing and in the final decision to launch the menu. There is a clear line between the chef’s responsibility to prepare the dishes according to the statement and the responsibility of senior management reviewing the menu, incl. pricing and profitability, presentation, tasting and approving the menu finally.

What role does the menu play in driving revenue beyond just food and beverage sales?

The Colonial Restaurant is the most luxurious restaurant of the resort, offering the most sophisticated fine dining menu [in the resort/ area/ destination] and plays therefore a significant role in terms of the overall culinary journey, experience of the resort’s guests as well as reputation.

As there is no direct equivalent in this area matching the quality and exclusivity of fine dining, it puts The Colonial Restaurant in the spotlight not only of guests from more than 60 countries visiting the resort every year, but also culinary insiders, gourmets, journalists, KOL and many other important professionals.

How do you align menu strategy with broader business goals — occupancy, loyalty, events, or F&B mix?

There is a close correlation between the menu strategy and other business goals. The more exclusive, unique and sophisticated the menu is, the more it attracts guests coming to visit [stay] – occupancy, return – loyalty, experience – guest satisfaction/ reputation and probably planning the restaurant for individual events.

As a leader, what do you look for when evaluating a menu for the first time at a new property?

Who are the guests

What are the guests saying about the menu/ dishes/ drink selection

How profitable is the menu

How much profit it generates

How efficiently the dishes can be prepared

How do you create a menu that works across different guest segments — leisure, business, local, international?

The menu offers and creates an exclusive and unique dining experience which is generally not easily to find in and outside of Vietnam. The menu contains sophisticated dishes, which people from different age groups, nationalities, cultures are eager to explore and to experience – dishes harmoniously blend classical French cuisine with Vietnamese culinary nuances [with paired or self- selected corresponding wines]

Guests visiting The Colonial Restaurant doing so, because they would like to experience and to explore how the authentic local ingredients or cooking techniques can be blended with the worldwide well- known classic French cuisine

As the resort is welcoming guests from more than 60 countries from around the globe, many of them are using the opportunity to take this dining experience as a memorable and unique culinary experience home.

What’s one menu decision you’ve made that had a surprisingly significant impact on the business?

Not related to The Colonial but to Beach Club. We dedicated one day of the week (it was the Monday) to our best-selling item (The Anam Burger) and offered these plus variations and additions in a prime location. This was generating a great experience and additional revenue.

Where do you see menu experiences heading in the next five years?

Menus will continue to exist as we know them today (printed and digital). As technology advances, menus may be able to reach, touch and attract more individual human senses than today.

What’s the most exciting shift you’re seeing in how menus are being imagined and designed today?

It is very exciting to see every restaurant can create great menus in just minutes and at very low costs, meeting the expectations and needs of their customers.. As time and cost efficiency are always crucial in business, and it helps especially small and low budget restaurants.

Is the traditional printed menu at risk of disappearing — and would that be a loss?

The number of restaurants using printed menus might be significantly lower, but it will not disappear entirely. I believe that printed menus have the chance to become even another luxury item available only in high class or the best restaurants [while others can or don’t like to make the effort or can’t afford to print it].

Touching, feeling and hearing the crinkle of paper may be found in future only in the best restaurants where this classic experience is part of restaurants philosophy. Similar: books for tens of dollars vs. eBooks for a few cents OR talking to a classic human chief concierge vs. to a chatbot OR classic cinema vs. YouTube – it is a different experience.

For certain reasons, there is a need for both options.

How do you think sustainability, provenance, and ethical sourcing will reshape menus going forward?

Products and Ingredients from unsustainable productions, from unknown provenance and from unethical sources will hopefully disappear very quickly. It is a matter of education and the purpose of business as well as the policies in a country.

What’s one thing about menus that the industry hasn’t figured out yet — and should?

The quality and content of the menu reflect exactly what the restaurant’s guest will receive as service, on the plate or inside the cup or glass.

If you could redesign the concept of a menu from scratch, what would you do differently?

There should be one page dedicated to the chef, showing the photo of the chef and informing about the chef’s values and philosophy of cooking. Another page should be dedicated to the restaurant owner, showing the photo and informing them about the history, vision and focus of the restaurant.

What does a truly great menu experience look like to you as a professional and as a guest?

A great menu experience is, if the menu is helpful enough to save quality time which you can spend enjoying the ambience, service and dining.