MENU-PAAN: Menu Translator
Photo scan: know what to order
Free · In‑App Purchases · Designed for iPad. Not verified for macOS.
Can't read the menu? Those days are over.
Just photograph it. Advanced AI explains what each dish really is.
50 countries. Ordering, the bill, tipping. Free to try.
The trip you had been waiting for. The restaurant you had been looking forward to. And then the menu arrives, and you cannot read a word of it.
So you look for something that sounds vaguely familiar and order the safe option. The plate arrives, and it is not what you pictured. Then you glance at the next table, and their food looks far better than yours.
MENU-PAAN exists so that evening stops happening.
A TRANSLATION ON ITS OWN DOES NOT HELP
Turn the Japanese dish "oyakodon" into English word for word and you get "parent-and-child rice bowl". Accurate, and completely useless. (It is chicken and egg simmered over rice, comfort food in the way a good pot pie is.) MENU-PAAN does not simply swap words. It tells you what the dish actually is: what goes into it, how it is cooked, and how people eat it where you are standing. Where it helps, it compares the dish to something you already know, "similar to mac and cheese", "like BBQ ribs", and shows a reference photo so you can see it before you commit.
JUST TAKE A PHOTO
Point your camera at the menu and that is it. Printed menus, handwritten chalkboards, up to five photos in one go. Several advanced AI models work behind the scenes, one to read the writing, another to explain the food, and the app chooses the right one for you automatically. 50 countries and regions are covered.
NO MORE AGONISING OVER WHAT TO ORDER
Local specialities and the restaurant's signature dishes are marked, and so are dishes likely to suit your taste. Tell the app which foods you would rather avoid, and anything likely to contain them gets a caution mark. You can also show the waiter a card in the local language: "I would rather not eat prawns."
FROM ORDERING TO THE BILL
Build an order list and simply show it to the staff: every dish in the original language, the local language and yours. Ask for sharing plates or water, or say how you would like your meat cooked. Tell the app how many of you there are and roughly what you want to spend, and it will suggest a combination. Useful travel phrases in 17 languages come with pronunciation and can be read aloud. Prices are shown as an approximate figure in your own currency, with exchange rates refreshed every day. When the bill comes, you get a guide to local tax, service charges and what people usually tip.
WEAK SIGNAL? STILL FINE
Menus you have already read stay on your device, so you can look back at them with no connection at all. Photograph the dishes you loved and keep them with your own notes. Share a translated menu with friends by QR code: they do not need the app, it opens in a browser. What you like and what you avoid stays with you and is never passed on.
WHO MADE IT
A former diplomat who now runs restaurants. Four years at the Japanese Embassy in the United Kingdom, and one evening in London, defeated by a menu, he ordered fish and chips again. He is the fourth generation of a restaurant business founded 75 years ago, and he built this for everyone who has had that evening.
WHAT IT COSTS
Try Lite (free) three times a day without an account. Sign up and Lite stays free every day, with three Pro (paid) readings included. There is no monthly charge. Packs are bought once and never expire. Launch pricing is on now; see the app for details.
GOOD FOR
A first trip abroad. Street food and markets. Restaurants with no English menu. Travelling with children or parents. Business meals overseas.
Translations, explanations and caution marks are AI-generated reference information. We cannot guarantee that they are accurate. Always check with restaurant staff about ingredients and allergies.
Order the dish you actually wanted. Enjoy the trip.
Ratings & Reviews
- This app hasn’t received enough ratings or reviews to display an overview.
Thank you, as always, for using MENU-PAAN.
Georgian has been added to the staff phrasebook, which now covers 18 languages. We have also fixed an issue where the index did not always jump to the group you tapped.
Short notes on a dish are now kept separately from the dishes you have marked as memorable. Both can be added or removed from a long press, and dishes without a note no longer show an empty field.
We have revised how the "For you" and "Caution" labels are decided, so that the same ingredient written in a different way, or a menu written in the local language, is less likely to be misread. When a suggested order is ready, the app now takes you straight to the order list.
Menus can now be translated where the signal is weak. If the photo cannot get through, the menu is read on your device instead. The app tells you when this happens, since accuracy can be lower, and no translation is deducted.
Cautions for foods you avoid are now shown in the words you entered.
We have also fixed smaller issues, including how history photographs load and how price digits are corrected. Should anything come to mind, we should be very glad to hear from you.
The developer, PAAN CO., LTD., indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Linked to You
The following data may be collected and linked to your identity:
- Health & Fitness
- Purchases
- Location
- Contact Info
- User Content
- Identifiers
- Sensitive Info
- Other Data
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- PAAN CO., LTD.
- Size
- 65.8 MB
- Category
- Food & Drink
- Compatibility
Requires iOS 17.0 or later.
- iPhone
Requires iOS 17.0 or later. - iPad
Requires iPadOS 17.0 or later. - Mac
Requires macOS 14.0 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later. - Apple Vision
Requires visionOS 1.0 or later.
- iPhone
- Languages
English and 11 more
- English, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Thai, Traditional Chinese, Vietnamese
- Age Rating
13+
- 13+
- Infrequent
Alcohol, Tobacco, Drug Use or References
- In-App Purchases
Yes
- 1-month plan $14.99
- 1-week plan $5.99
- 3-day plan $2.99
- 30 meals $7.99
- 100 meals $19.99
- 10 meals $3.99
- Copyright
- © 2026 PAAN Co., Ltd.
