It changes, so the kitchen has to own it
Dishes and bottles move with the season and with what came in. A menu only the developer can edit is a menu that is wrong by the second week.
CASE STUDY · 2024
Restaurant website design
built around a digital wine menu.
A site for a Córdoba tapas and wine bar, built around the menu the room actually reads: filterable by pairing, by diet and by allergy, edited by the restaurant, and tagged so a bottle can point at the plate it belongs with.
92
Items on the live menu
42
Wines, by type and by pairing
6
Recommended pairings a bottle can carry
5
Allergies tagged on every dish
Counted from the live catalog, so these move as the menu does.
- Client
- Bend
- Industry
- Restaurant
- Year
- 2024
THE CHALLENGE
The menu is not a page. It is the service.
The same menu the guest opens at the table is the one on the site, so it has to be right, current, and useful to somebody who does not know the names.
Bend opened in Córdoba as a tapas and wine bar with a proposition nobody in the city was making, and it arrived with its identity already finished: a marketing agency had built the brand, the typography and the tone of voice. What it did not have was a site, or a structure for one. We came in to propose the sitemap from the business outwards and to put that identity on the web without diluting any of it.
A list helps whoever already knows
Labels and prices are perfect for the initiated and useless to the guest Bend most wants: the one getting into wine who has no idea where to start.
Nobody should have to ask what they can eat
Reading a whole menu to find out whether anything is safe is not an experience, and asking out loud is not everybody's idea of dinner.
THE SOLUTION
Tag everything, then let the guest ask.
One tagging system underneath the whole catalog, so the same menu answers three different questions: what goes with this, what can I eat, and what is this.
The pairing filter, which is the whole idea
Every wine carries its type and the dishes it is recommended with, so the guest enters through the food they already understand and the list answers with a bottle. It is the sommelier's question, asked by the menu instead of by a person.
- Six pairings, on the bottle Red meat, pasta and risotto, fish, spicy plates, desserts and cheese: a wine can carry as many as apply.
- Four types, filterable Red, white, rosé and sparkling, stackable with the pairing so the answer narrows instead of resetting.
- It turns a hard moment into an easy one Choosing wine in front of company is where people feel exposed. The list does the knowing.
Dietary needs, without the interrogation
The same tagging logic turned into a commitment the kitchen made: every dish declares its dietary preferences and its allergens, on the card and in the filters, so a guest narrows the menu to what is theirs and never has to ask the room.
- Five allergies, tagged per dish Free of starch, egg, dairy, peanut and fish, each its own filter.
- Vegan, vegetarian, gluten free and spicy Including the "vegetarian option" and "vegan option" cases, because a kitchen that can adapt a plate should be able to say so.
- Visible before the filter The badges sit on the dish card too, so it reads right even for somebody who never touches the filters.
A menu the restaurant runs
Dishes, wines, categories, prices, photographs, dietary tags, allergens and pairings are all loaded and edited from the panel. Ninety-two items are published today across the room, the wine list and the bar, and none of them needed us.
- Priced the way it is sold Wine by the bottle and by the 50ml glass, on the same card.
- Still being updated In hospitality that is the difference between a current menu and a dead one.
The site around it, and their brand on it
A sitemap drawn from how the business runs, with no template underneath it, and the agency's identity, typography and tone applied across the whole thing. We also kept it standing: 24/7 cover for when something goes down.
- Their identity, not ours The brand came finished from a marketing agency. The work was applying it on the web without losing anything in the move.
- Structure before pages The sitemap came out of how the place actually works, which is why the menu is the spine of the site and not a tab on it.
- Groundwork for the supplier side The catalog carries a brand field, so a winery can be placed first in the list and in the recommendations. Commercially it is the menu paying for itself.
How it is wired WordPress with the catalog on WooCommerce, the tagging as taxonomies of its own (allergies and pairings) alongside the type and dietary tags, and the layout in Elementor on the agency's typography. Hosting is the restaurant's, and we cover it 24/7.
A LOOK AT THE WORK
EXPLORE
THE MISSION.
STACK & TOOLS
WHAT IT IS
BUILT ON.
Only what this project actually runs on.
LET'S TALK ABOUT YOURS
THE RESULTS
The menu does what a good waiter does.
The menu answers the pairing question itself. The pairing filter answers on the screen the question that used to need somebody to walk over, which lowers the barrier for exactly the guest Bend wants to win: the one who is curious about wine and does not want to admit they are lost. For anyone with a dietary restriction the change is bigger still, they filter and see only what is theirs. And the kitchen has run the whole catalog itself since launch.
- Sitemap built from the business
- Wine filter by type and pairing
- Dish filter by course, diet and allergen
- Diet and allergen badges on every dish
- 92-item catalog the restaurant edits
- Price by bottle and by glass
READY WHEN YOU ARE
YOUR CASE STUDY
IS THE NEXT ONE.
Tell us what you are building and where it is stuck. We answer within one business day.