Bilingual Arabic & English Menus: What UAE Cafés Should Get Right

"Supports Arabic" can mean three very different things

Nearly every menu product in the UAE claims Arabic support. In practice it means one of three things, and only the third is actually usable:

Machine translation on the fly. The menu is English and a button auto-translates it. Fast to set up, and it will render your "Fresh Orange Juice" as something no Arabic speaker would write on a menu. Dish names in particular translate badly — karak, luqaimat, shawarma, regional sandwich names all get mangled.

Translated text, English layout. Someone typed real Arabic, but the page still runs left-to-right. Prices sit on the wrong side, arrows point the wrong way, and text alignment fights the reader. It looks like a translated English page, because it is.

A genuinely bilingual menu. Each item has its own Arabic name and description, written not translated, and the whole interface flips to right-to-left when Arabic is selected — layout, alignment, icons, navigation.

The third takes more effort to set up. It's also the only one that doesn't quietly signal to Arabic-speaking customers that they're an afterthought.

What right-to-left actually involves

RTL isn't a text setting. When Arabic is selected, the page should mirror:

Text aligns right. Item name on the right, price on the left — the mirror of the English layout, not the same layout with Arabic text stuffed in. Back arrows and chevrons point the other way. Navigation and sidebars move to the opposite side. Any icons implying direction flip.

Numbers are the exception people get wrong: prices stay left-to-right even in Arabic text. "45.50" doesn't reverse. Neither do phone numbers or plate numbers.

If you're evaluating a product, switch it to Arabic and look at a page with prices and a back button. You'll know within five seconds whether they did the work.

Write dish names, don't translate them

The most common mistake, and the most visible to customers.

Some things have a real Arabic name that everyone uses, and translating the English is wrong. Karak is كرك — not "شاي حليب قوي". Luqaimat is لقيمات. Shawarma is شاورما.

Other things genuinely don't have a settled Arabic name and are commonly written in English even on Arabic menus — many coffee drinks, for example. Forcing a literal translation of "Spanish Latte" produces something no one orders by name.

The rule that works: write what a customer would say out loud when ordering. That's often not what a dictionary produces.

This is also why per-item Arabic fields matter more than a translate button. Only a human who knows the food gets this right, and only once — then it's stored.

Which language should open by default?

It depends on your customers, and it's worth thinking about rather than defaulting.

For a cafeteria in Sharjah with mostly Arabic-speaking regulars, opening in Arabic is respectful and reduces friction. For a café in a Dubai tourist area, English probably makes more sense. Some products detect the phone's language, which handles both — but the manual toggle must always be visible, because plenty of people run their phone in English while preferring to read a menu in Arabic.

Whatever the default, switching should take one tap and shouldn't lose the customer's place or their cart.

Arabic typography is not English typography with different letters

A few things that separate a menu that looks designed from one that looks converted:

Arabic needs more vertical line spacing than Latin text — cramped Arabic is genuinely harder to read. The font matters: a proper Arabic typeface, not a fallback that renders letters disconnected. Arabic text also runs longer than English for the same meaning, so buttons and cards need room to breathe or text will clip.

None of this is exotic. It's just work that a product either did or didn't do.

What to check before you commit

A five-minute test on any product you're considering:

Switch to Arabic and confirm the whole layout flips, not just the words. Look at a price — it should read left-to-right and sit on the correct side. Find a back arrow and confirm it points the right way. Check whether you can enter your own Arabic name for each item, or whether it's auto-translating. Open it on a phone, not a laptop. And if you can, have an Arabic-speaking customer look at it for thirty seconds — they'll spot in one glance what a spec sheet won't tell you.

Common questions

Can I just use Google Translate for the menu? You can, and customers will notice. Dish names especially come out wrong. It's better to write the Arabic once, properly, and store it.

Do I need Arabic if most of my customers speak English? Depends on your area. But in most of the UAE, Arabic-only customers exist and an English-only menu quietly turns them away.

What about Hindi, Urdu, Tagalog? Common in the UAE, but Arabic and English cover the great majority. Adding more languages multiplies the maintenance work — most cafés are better off doing two languages well.

Does the Arabic name have to be on printed materials too? Not necessarily, but a bilingual sign or QR label helps customers know the menu will be in their language before they scan.