Menus
020 3375 6674 info@silverimagelondon.com Open 24 hours, 7 days a week — call or email and we will tell you what is possible today.
Restaurant and event menus in A5, A4, A3, and DL on waterproof, laminated, or tear-proof synthetic paper, produced same-day at our 24/7 London facility. Same-day and overnight courier delivery is available across London, with frequent deliveries to the City, West End, Canary Wharf and Central London.
Every job is quoted on its specification. Send us yours and we will come back with a firm figure.
| Specification | Detail |
|---|---|
| Sizes | A6, A5, A4 and A3 |
| Finish | Laminated, waterproof or tear-proof |
| Formats | Flat or folded |
| Typical use | Restaurant, takeaway and bar menus |
| Turnaround | Same day |
Artwork specifications
Bleed, safe margins, colour, resolution, file format
Food photography sells the dish — check your photos will print crisp.
| Requirement | What we need | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Bleed | 3 mm on every edge | With crop marks offset by 3 mm. Anything running off the page has to extend past the trim, or a white hairline appears along the cut edge. |
| Safe margin | Text 5 mm clear of the trim | Trimming moves by a fraction of a millimetre across a run. Type sitting on the trim line will look uneven from copy to copy. |
| Colour mode | CMYK, not RGB | Bright RGB blues and greens sit outside the CMYK gamut and print duller than they look on screen. Send Pantone references for brand colours. |
| Resolution at final size | 300 dpi at the finished size | Measured on the printed piece, not in the file. A 72 dpi web image scaled up stays 72 dpi. |
| File format | PDF preferred — but send what you have | We accept virtually any artwork format and check every file in-house before production. If anything needs adjusting we will tell you immediately, before we print. |
| Fonts | Outlined, or fully embedded | Outlined is safer on urgent work: there is no substitution risk at 3am when nobody is at a desk to answer. |
| Images | Embedded in the PDF | PDF/X-4 embeds everything by default. Linked images that did not travel with the file are a common cause of a job stalling. |
| Transparency | Supported — no need to flatten | PDF/X-4 carries live transparency. Flattening by hand often causes the white boxes and colour shifts it was meant to avoid. |
| Laminated menus | Normal safe margin — nothing lost | Lamination takes no printable area. The sheet is trimmed after laminating, so the standard 5 mm clearance is all you need. |
| Encapsulated menus | Keep text and logos 8 mm inside the trim | Encapsulation is different: it seals a welded border of roughly 4–8 mm on every side. Anything sitting inside that band disappears into the weld. These two finishes get confused constantly — check which one you are ordering before you build the artwork. |
Before you upload
- Export as PDF/X-4
- Convert fonts to outlines
- Extend backgrounds into the bleed
- Keep important content inside the safe margin
- Supply images at 300 dpi at the finished size
- Check the page size matches the finished trim size
Send the file even where there is doubt about it. We check bleed, resolution, embedded fonts and page size before anything goes on press, and where a fix is small it is usually just done. A two-minute reply at 9pm is faster than a re-export at 7am.
What turns a same-day job into a next-day one is almost never the printing. It is a question that has to go back to you and sit unanswered — artwork built at the wrong finished size, a logo supplied at screen resolution, or type running off the trim with no bleed behind it. Getting the six points above right removes nearly every one of those.
Encapsulated or synthetic: which menu survives service
London’s restaurants and bars require durable, high-quality menus that can withstand spills and frequent handling, whether that is a dine-in menu used nightly or a disposable one printed for a single service. We specialize in two main types: Encapsulated Menus (sealed in a heavy plastic pouch with a sealed edge) and Synthetic Menus (printed on waterproof, tear-proof plastic paper that looks like premium card).
We serve hospitality venues in Covent Garden, Soho and Shoreditch with same-day menu printing, and the same overnight run covers the restaurant strips further out — Marylebone Village and Upper Street in Angel — where a menu reprint has to be on the pass before lunch service, not after it. Whether you need A3 placemats, folded takeaway menus, or premium wine lists, our 24/7 production team ensures you are ready for service. We can also print QR code stickers for table ordering.
Q&A
We recommend "Synaps" synthetic paper. It looks like paper but is actually plastic—100% waterproof, tear-proof, and washable.
Yes. We specialize in hospitality emergencies. We can print and deliver menus to Soho or Covent Garden same-day.
Yes. We print cheap, folded takeaway menus on thinner 130gsm gloss paper for mass distribution.
Yes. We use professional creasing machines to ensure the fold is clean and the toner doesn't crack, even on thick card.
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Send us the job
Tell us the size, the quantity and when you need it. We come back with a firm price, and we check the artwork before anything goes on press.
Open 24 hours, 7 days a week. Same-day and overnight delivery across London.
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