A Stalwart menu cover tells your story before the first dish is served — craftsmanship, care, and London character in every detail.
Choosing the right menu cover isn’t about following a template — it’s about finding something that feels right for your restaurant. The material, the fixing, even the way the logo catches the light — every detail shapes how your guests experience your brand from the first moment.
At Stalwart Crafts, we help London restaurants and hotels design menu covers that feel like an extension of their space. Whether you’re a Mayfair members’ club, a Shoreditch cocktail bar, or a Notting Hill brasserie, here’s how we help you choose the perfect fit.
The leather sets the tone — it’s the handshake before the meal begins. At Stalwart Crafts, every menu we make falls under one of two styles:
Each style has its own personality, strengths, and ideal setting.
Magazine Style Menu Covers — Flexible design with natural character, shaped by real leather that ages beautifully.
Magazine Style menus are flexible, tactile, and rich in character — perfect for venues that appreciate the warmth and movement of real leather.
Within this style, you can choose from three types of leather:
Thick, heavy, and full of natural charm. It develops a beautiful patina over time — ideal for wine lists and premium gastronomy.
A lighter, more flexible version of Saddlehide Classic. Refined, stylish, and easier to handle — perfect for menus that change often.
Thin, flexible leathers that create a relaxed magazine-style look. The paper provides the structure, giving a clean, minimalist aesthetic loved by contemporary London venues and cocktail bars.
Important: Because Simplicity leathers are soft and flexible, the Gold Bar paper fitting is not suitable for this style. This is only for the Simplicity collection, for the Saddlehide Classic and Saddlehide Flex collection the Gold bar paper fitting is available.
All Magazine Style menus can be made in a broad palette of colours and finishes.
Hardcover Menu Covers — Clean lines, firm structure, quiet luxury.
Our Hardcover menus use soft Deluxe leather, reinforced with a board and finished with a premium fabric interior. They’re elegant, pristine, and table-ready — ideal for fine dining restaurants, hotel dining rooms, and any venue where the menu itself becomes part of the setting.
If you’re unsure which type suits your venue, we’re here to help.
Choosing the right leather for your setting is what we do best — call us and we’ll guide you through it.
Every venue has its own pace.
If your menus live in a place where things move fast — a bar, brasserie, or high-energy dining room — you’ll want a sealed and durable leather like Saddlehide Mistral, Vento or Flex. Or if you prefer the Hardcover option the Deluxe leather is a great choice too! They’re scratch-resistant, waterproof, and hold up beautifully even if they end up sitting in a puddle of beer.
For quieter, more refined environments, Saddlehide Classic remains a favourite. Its open structure deepens in character and colour over time, creating a menu with warmth and personality.
The fixing determines how your menu functions during service. We help you choose the one that suits your workflow best.
Elegant, clean and practical.
The elastic strap runs through the back, loops through the page holes, and locks behind a gold bar at the front. You can add or replace pages easily, and it works with standard A4 or A5 sheets — no special sizing needed.
Used by premium venues like Los Mochis.
Note: Not suitable for Simplicity Collection as this design is too soft and flexible for the gold bar.
Versatile, classic, and ideal for menus that are updated frequently.
In this system, your folded page (A3 for A4 menus, or A4 for A5 menus) slides underneath the central elastic strap. To make this work beautifully, we design our elastic-strap menu covers slightly more narrow than the full width of the unfolded page.
When a client first sees this, it can look as if the paper might be “too big” for the menu — but this is intentional.
Here’s why:
To keep the pages perfectly centred and snug under the elastic, we recommend cutting a small triangular notch at the top and bottom of the folded page. These notches sit neatly around the elastic strap, allowing the page to drop into place with precision. Once notched, the paper fits perfectly in the middle, stays straight during service, and doesn’t move around when the menu is handled.
It’s a simple detail, but it completely transforms the look and practicality of the menu.
This fitting also works with plastic insert sleeves or window pages if you need extra protection or structure.
A classic option that works well for menus that don’t change often — like tasting menus or wine lists. The pages sit inside metal screw posts, which gives the menu a solid, book-like feel.
The only thing to keep in mind is that updating pages takes a little longer, as you need to open and close the screws. If you want the structured look but quicker updates, you can use plastic insert sleeves so you simply slide new pages in and out without touching the screws.
Branding done properly — available from 10 bespoke covers.
We create a custom metal stamp of your logo and press it into the leather using heat embossing. On natural hides like Saddlehide Classic, the heat slightly darkens the leather, creating a subtle tone-on-tone finish.
For contrast, choose foil embossing in:
Before production begins, you’ll always receive a digital proof.
Send us a message and we’ll help you create something truly unique — from understated elegance to bold statement pieces.
Every menu cover style has a recommended paper size. We’ll provide the exact specifications — even templates showing where the holes should be punched for your chosen fitting.
If you’d prefer a complete solution, we can arrange professional printing for your menu inserts too.
If you’re in London, we like to keep things personal — we come to you.
After a short call, one of our specialists visits your venue with a curated selection of menu covers to explore materials, fixings, and colours together. You design – we make
For clients outside London or when timing is tight, we create a personal presentation video and a carousel of images you can share with your team.
Once you’ve chosen your materials:
Standard lead time for bespoke menus: 3–4 weeks
If we’re developing a completely new leather: 5–8 weeks
Urgent projects: as fast as 1 week
Just let us know — we can move fast when you need us to.
Our favourite part of this craft is the relationships we build. Here are three projects that capture who we are:
Think of us less as suppliers, and more as partners in your front-of-house design.
Whether you need ten menus or a thousand, you deal directly with Tim, Faran, or Jenica. No call centres. No scripts. Just people who care about getting it right for you.
We’re here to help — from the first idea to the final delivery. Call us, and let’s create something remarkable for your venue.
About Stalwart Crafts
Bespoke leather menu covers, handmade in Europe. Designed for London’s finest restaurants and hotels. We’re a London-based leather crafts business, pushing boundaries to take businesses from ordinary to extraordinary. It’s not for nothing that we’ve won the UK Innovation and Sustainability Award—let us help you.
Have a one-on-one call with Tim or Faran for advice on your Stalwart order.
Want to see our quality leathers before you buy? Request a free sample below or order all samples and a catalogue for only £12.99.
Please note that the free samples are only available to customers in the United Kingdom and you will have to pay £3.99 for shipping.
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Want to see our quality leathers before you buy? Request a free sample. Please note that the free samples are only available to customers in the United Kingdom, and you will have to pay £3.99 for shipping.
Festive Discounts - 20% OFF
