The 15 Best Restaurant Websites for Design Inspiration

The best restaurant websites have one thing in common: beautiful presentation. An attractive design with excellent imagery can bring you many customers. Usability is important. But it’s the mouth-watering visuals that make these sites great.

The visual presentation should not distract your visitors from getting key information, however. Your locations, menu items and opening hours should be easily accessible.

Below we have listed some of our favourite restaurant websites for you to use as design inspiration.

Your restaurant website could have the following components

With the majority of customers visiting a restaurant’s website prior to dining in or taking out and preferring to use the website or app for food delivery, you have already understood why you need to care about the restaurant’s website design.

But despite the significant emphasis placed on the need for websites with dependable features, a considerable number of restaurants find themselves lacking in websites that adequately cater to their specific requirements.

So, here’s a quick rundown of the key components you should work on to ensure your restaurant website is as effective as possible.

• Online ordering and reservation system.
• Menu with descriptions and pricing.
• Social media accounts.
• Contact details.
• Customer reviews and testimonials.
• Special offers and promotions.
• Direction or map to the location.
• Photo Gallery.
• Frequently asked question page.

1. Bresca

If you are looking for a standard restaurant website design example, take this one. Bresca mentions their address and phone number right at the top. Then comes a well-organised menu bar from where you can access every important page, like our story, menus, events, contact details, gift cards and newsletter.

Site address: https://www.brescadc.com/

2. Sono

Sono Australia has an elegant single-page website with relevant images and call-to-actions in each section. The menu on the top gives you quick access to different parts of the page. They provide precise information regarding their address, trading hours and parking facilities. There’s also an inquiry form in case you have any general questions. Overall, the site is very well-designed and user-friendly.

Site address: https://sonorestaurant.com.au/

3. JB Restaurant

The strategically placed Reservations button is optimised to prompt visitors to book a table. It evokes the upscale atmosphere that guests can expect from a visit to JB Restaurant. The photography shows crisp clarity, complemented by tasteful font selections, while the minimalist colour palette maintains a subtle elegance. As a whole, the website promises an exceptional experience for all its customers.

Site address: https://jb-slo.com/

4. Colonia Verde

Colonia Verde has an unconventional website. The hero scene features a captivating, full-width image accompanied by the brand logo. The sticky header, complete with the logo, reservation button, and off-canvas menu, remains accessible throughout. In addition, the harmonious blend of imagery and short description creates an immersive user experience that leaves a lasting impression.

Site address: https://www.coloniaverdenyc.com/

5. Restaurante Baobab

This is a good example of a vibrant and colourful restaurant website. The website’s design is a stunning display of innovation, featuring cool and subtle animation. The minimalist homepage offers direct access points to their letter, testing menus and reservation and order options. The content is also masterfully presented, incorporating various vibrant and dynamic colours that enhance its overall appeal.

Site address: https://www.restaurantebaobab.com/

6. Protein

Here’s another vibrant and colourful restaurant website. Protein Bar & Kitchen operates in multiple locations and takes online orders, as seen in their navigation bar. The homepage uses a carousel of images along with some parallax effects. The visuals used throughout the site follow a well-chosen colour palette.

Site address: https://www.theproteinbar.com/

7. Quay

Quay is one of Australia’s most awarded restaurants, and they have an excellent website to match their reputation. The combination of stunning images and ample use of whitespace gives this site an elegant look. There’s an in-built reservation system, which is accessible from the top right corner. The hamburger menu on the left is nicely organised. Quay’s site works perfectly on mobile devices.

Site address: https://www.quay.com.au/

8. Quince

Quince provides an excellent example of how you should design a restaurant website. The minimalist main page offers quick access to their menus, private dining, team and reservation options. The site uses huge white space with soft typography and clean layouts that mirror the sophisticated fine-dining experience Quince offers. At the top, the Quince logo and reservations option establish clarity and purpose. All the pages contain full-width, vibrant images of both the food and the restaurant interior.

Site address: https://www.quincerestaurant.com/

9. Easy Bistro

Easy Bistro & Bar uses a slideshow of images on their homepage. The opening hours, contact information and address are there at the bottom. There is a Reservation button on the top left and a menu button on the top right. Clicking on the menu button opens full-page navigation from where you can check their food menu private dining options, know more about the chef and get links to their social media accounts.

Site address: https://www.easybistro.com/

10. Pastaria

The site is very well-organised and has a clean look. There is a top menu that comes with options like Menus, Reservations, Order Online, Gift Cards, and Events & Catering. It highlights the most important visitor needs, making the site highly functional. There are CTAs like Visit Us and Reservations, strategically placed to balance storytelling with functionality to encourage conversions.

Site address: https://pastariastl.com/

11. ilili

This is another great example of a standard restaurant website design. ilili uses inviting images on its homepage that showcase both its food and interior. The navigation bar gives quick access to their location, menu, catering options, etc. You can also order online or reserve seats right from there.

Site address: https://www.ililirestaurants.com/

12. Au Cheval

Au Cheval’s site is all about visuals. The site contains stunning full-screen images. Scrolling down through these images will surely get you motivated to give their restaurant a try. The site design makes important information easily accessible via the top-right menu icon. If you want to build your restaurant’s site focusing only on images, Au Cheval is an excellent example of how to do that.

Site address: https://www.auchevaldiner.com/chicago/home

13. Fox

Fox In The Snow Cafe uses a right-side navigation bar and many images on its homepage. A selection of their Instagram posts is arranged in square-sized grids, which is a nice way to show that they have an active presence on social media.

Site address: https://www.foxinthesnow.com/

14. 4 Rivers

4 Rivers Smokehouse uses video on its homepage to grab the viewer’s attention. The website uses several full-width images to break the page into different sections with appropriate call-to-action buttons.

Site address: https://www.4rsmokehouse.com/

15. Folk

The word “FOLK” in the hero section catches the attention and acts as a clean, understated logo. The menu board includes everything from Large Parties to Online Orders to Gift Cards to About, Contact and Jobs, making the reservation direct and uncluttered. The site also uses a lot of white space, minimal colour, and strong typography which make it visually appealing and keep the focus on the food and community vibe.

Site address: https://www.goodasfolk.com/

Restaurant website best practices

Consider your website as a sneak peek into your restaurant. It must give visitors a taste of what’s waiting for them inside.

Take inspiration from other websites

Study the successful restaurant websites to identify the website design that works. Suppose, if you want to keep your site warm and approachable, you can follow the design of Pastaria. But if you are into minimalist design, Folk could be a good example to look at.

A strong hero section is a must

The hero section is the first thing people notice. You can use high-quality pictures of your signature dishes or a sneak peek of your interior space to grab the eyes. Try to portray what makes your restaurant unique.

Make your site mobile-friendly

You have to make sure that all elements, from menus to buttons to images to text, display properly across different screen sizes. This will improve user experience as well as affect search engine rankings.

Highlight the menu

You must make the menu easy to locate and read. Use clean layouts and organised sections, so that visitors can get a taste of what to expect with a short glance.

Accessibility features

It should be an integral part of your website design. You can add features like screen reader support, descriptive alt text and skip to content links. Ensure readable fonts and keyboard-friendly navigation.

Choose the right website builder

Selecting the right platforms is a must. There are many tools that offer pre-designed templates tailored for restaurants, which feature menus, reservations and ecommerce for gift cards or merchandise.

Conclusion

As you browse through these websites, you’ll realise there are several common design patterns that are repeatedly used by different sites. It might seem quite hard to be unique among the thousands of restaurant sites on the web, but it’s not absolutely necessary to be different from all of them.

What matters the most is to be able to attract customers through beautiful visuals and by providing an excellent user experience. In a broader sense, these two qualities set quality websites apart from mediocre ones.