Help
Logging foodHow do I scan a restaurant menu?
Updated 7 July 2026
Eating out can make tracking your nutrition tricky, especially when you are unsure about portion sizes or hidden ingredients. Focal takes the guesswork away by allowing you to snap a photo of any physical or digital menu. The app uses smart vision technology to read the dishes and estimate their nutritional value based on printed details and AI analysis. You will learn exactly how to capture a menu, browse the detected sections, and add your chosen meals directly to your daily diary. We will also explain how this feature uses your monthly AI lookup limits and what to do if your scan gets interrupted before you finish logging your meal entirely. Tracking your nutrients at a restaurant has never been more straightforward.
Eating Out Without The Guesswork
Maya Chen, Focal product specialist — knows every feature inside-out · Callum Brooks, Strength coach and nutrition advisor — ten years coaching everyday lifters
The host and guests are fictional characters. This conversation is scripted and based on verified information from this help article.
Section 1
Introduction
Eating out can make tracking your nutrition tricky, especially when you are unsure about portion sizes or hidden ingredients. Focal takes the guesswork away by allowing you to snap a photo of any physical or digital menu. The app uses smart vision technology to read the dishes and estimate their nutritional value based on printed details and AI analysis. You will learn exactly how to capture a menu, browse the detected sections, and add your chosen meals directly to your daily diary. We will also explain how this feature uses your monthly AI lookup limits and what to do if your scan gets interrupted before you finish logging your meal entirely. Tracking your nutrients at a restaurant has never been more straightforward.
Section 2
Key takeaways
The essentials to remember.
- Menu scanning is a premium feature available only to Focal Pro users.
- You can snap a photo of a menu or upload one from your library to start.
- Focal sorts the menu into sections with a maximum of 25 items displayed per section.
- Tapping a dish to view its macros uses one of your 300 monthly AI lookups.
- Incomplete menu scans can be resumed later if you are interrupted.
- Your selected dishes appear in your standard meal diary after you confirm them.
Section 4
Browsing and logging items
Once the menu is scanned, Focal organises the dishes into sections like Starters or Mains. You will see up to 25 items per section; any extra items may be marked as truncated.
- Browse the extracted sections and tap on an item to look up its nutritional information.
- Review the estimated nutrition, which uses AI calculations and any printed calories on the menu.
- Add your choices to your basket to view a running breakdown of macros against your daily targets.
- Commit the basket to log the entries for your chosen date and meal type.
- Check your meal diary to see your logged restaurant items alongside your usual food entries.
Section 5
Subscription limits and AI allowances
Menu scanning relies on advanced AI vision and is exclusively available to Focal Pro subscribers. Free users will encounter a paywall if they attempt to use this feature.
- You must have an active Focal Pro subscription to scan menus.
- Each individual item you tap and look up counts against your monthly AI lookup allowance.
- Pro users receive a maximum of 300 item lookups per month.
- The AI only reads visible items, printed kcal or kJ, prices, and portion hints; it does not invent food not shown on the menu.
Section 6
Managing interruptions while scanning
We know that ordering food in a restaurant can be a busy moment. If you get distracted or need to close the app, your progress is not permanently lost.
- You can resume any in-progress menu scan session if the extraction process is interrupted.
- Return to the meal logging screen to pick up exactly where you left off.
- Your basket will retain your selected dishes and running macro preview until you commit them to your diary.
Section 7
Common questions
- Why did the app not find all the items on the menu page?
- Focal groups up to 25 items per menu category. If a section contains more than 25 dishes, the extra items are marked as truncated and will not be displayed.
- Do I need a Pro subscription to scan a menu?
- Yes. Menu scanning is a Focal Pro exclusive feature. If you are on the free tier, you will be prompted to upgrade when you try to access the menu scan option.
- How does the app calculate the calories for a restaurant meal?
- The app uses AI vision to read any printed calories or kilojoules on the menu, automatically converting kilojoules if needed. It also sizes up portion hints and descriptions to estimate the overall nutritional profile without inventing facts that are not visible.
- What happens if I close the app while selecting items?
- If your scanning session is interrupted, you can resume it. Focal saves your in-progress menu scan and basket so you can finish logging your meal when you are ready.
- Does simply scanning the menu use up my AI allowance?
- No, capturing the image does not use your allowance. However, each individual item you tap to look up its detailed nutrition will count as one lookup towards your 300 monthly limit limit.
Section 8
In the app
Where to find this in Focal.
To begin scanning a restaurant menu, open the main dashboard of the Focal app and tap the Add Meal button. From the logging options, choose the menu scan type to launch your camera. Keep in mind that restaurant scanning does not just log your food but also helps you make informed choices before you order. When you add items to your virtual basket, the running macro preview instantly shows how that meal fits into your daily targets. Your practical next step is to test this out during your next meal out by taking a clear photo of the physical menu before the waiter arrives.
