How to Price a Dish for Profit (UK, 2026)

Pricing a dish by "what feels right" or "what the place down the road charges" is how good restaurants end up busy and broke. Here is the actual method — the same one we built into our free food cost calculator — with a worked example you can follow.

Step 1 — Cost the recipe

List every ingredient in the dish and what it costs you, in the unit you buy it in. Multiply the amount used by the cost per unit.

For a salmon tartare starter:

• Salmon fillet — 0.12 kg × £12.00/kg = £1.44
• House dressing — 0.02 kg × £5.00/kg = £0.10
• Garnish & herbs — 0.10 kg × £4.50/kg = £0.45
• Blended olive oil — 0.05 ltr × £4.00/ltr = £0.20

Recipe cost: £2.19 for one portion.

Step 2 — Add wastage

Trim, spillage and the occasional dropped plate are real costs. Most kitchens add 5–15%. At 10% wastage:

£2.19 × 1.10 = £2.41 true cost per portion.

Step 3 — Choose your target GP

Decide the gross profit you want. For food, 70% is a sensible UK target (see what GP percentage a UK restaurant should aim for). The pricing formula is:

price (ex-VAT) = cost ÷ (1 − target GP)

So at 70% GP: £2.41 ÷ (1 − 0.70) = £2.41 ÷ 0.30 = £8.03 ex-VAT.

Step 4 — Add VAT

Menu prices are shown VAT-inclusive. At 20% VAT:

£8.03 × 1.20 = £9.64. Round to a confident menu price — £9.50 or £9.95.

If you price it at £9.50, your actual GP works backwards: ex-VAT that is £7.92, minus the £2.41 cost, is £5.51 — a GP of 70%. Bang on target.

Step 5 — Sense-check against the room

The maths gives you the floor, not the ceiling. Now ask:

• Will the room bear it? A £9.50 starter is fine in most casual UK venues; in a neighbourhood café it might be £7.50, which means you need to find cost out of the recipe, not pretend the GP is fine.
• Is it an anchor or a workhorse? A signature dish can carry a premium; a everyday staple needs to be sharp. You do not need the same GP on every line — you need the menu as a whole to average your target.
• What does it cost to make look good? A £9.50 dish that photographs beautifully sells itself. One that looks grey on a phone screen does not.

Let the calculator do the arithmetic

You do not need to do this longhand for every dish. Our free dish GP calculator runs all five steps live — type in the ingredients and it shows the price you need for any target GP, with wastage and VAT built in. Cost a dish before your next menu print.

And then make it sell

Right price, wrong photo, no bookings. Once your menu is costed properly, the lever that actually moves covers is how the food looks online and how often the right people see it — which is the whole reason Strapture exists. Book a free call and we will help your best-priced dishes pull their weight.