Tavolune documentation

A WordPress theme for restaurants, bistros, trattorias, cafes, steakhouses, fine dining rooms and wine bars. Six demos, a printed-style menu with a dietary filter, a tasting menu card, table reservations from your lunch and dinner services, events, a photo gallery and opening hours with an "Open now" badge.

Thank you for choosing Tavolune. This guide takes you from a fresh WordPress site to a copy of the demo with your own details. If something is not covered here, write to support@codememory.com — we answer within one working day.

• Version1.0.0
• WordPress6.5 or later
• PHP7.4 or later
• Live demoOpen the demo

Highlights

• Six restaurant demos imported in one click
• Booking bar in the hero: pick guests and a day, land on the reservation form
• Printed-style menu with section tabs and a vegetarian / vegan / gluten-free / dairy-free filter
• Dish pages with price, dietary marks, badge, origin, wine pairing, ingredients and allergens
• Tasting menu card: course by course, wine per course, price per guest and a "Book" button
• Table reservations with times from your lunch and dinner services, seating areas, occasions and a set-menu estimate, saved in your dashboard
• Events with dates, seats, an evening timeline and "Reserve a seat"
• Photo gallery with category filters and a full-size viewer
• Team profiles with role, signature dish, training and where to find them
• Opening hours with two services a day and an "Open now" badge
• Private dining packages, wine flights and a gift card banner
• Reviews, FAQ, steps, stats and a blog
• 21 Elementor widgets (free Elementor)
• Every section also works as a shortcode
• Call / book-a-table bar on phones
• Light and dark mode
• Colours and fonts from the Customizer
• Block patterns and every core block styled
• Self-hosted fonts, nothing loaded from Google
• Translation ready, right-to-left support
• Child theme included

What is in the download

themeforest-tavolune-wordpress-theme/
├── tavolune.zip               ← the theme: upload this in WordPress
├── tavolune-child.zip         ← child theme, for your own code changes (optional)
├── plugins/tavolune-core.zip  ← the theme's plugin (also installed from inside the theme)
├── demo-content/              ← demo files for a manual import
├── documentation/             ← this guide, as HTML and PDF
└── licensing/                 ← GPL licence, font licences and credits

Requirements

• WordPress 6.5 or later (tested up to 7.1).
• PHP 7.4 or later (8.2 or later recommended).
• For the demo import: PHP memory_limit 256M, max_execution_time 300, upload size 32M. Most hosts already allow this; if an import stops half-way, ask your host to raise these values.

Every plugin the theme uses is free from wordpress.org. Nothing needs a paid licence.

Installing the theme

1. In your dashboard, go to Appearance → Themes → Add New Theme → Upload Theme.
2. Choose tavolune.zip and click Install Now, then Activate.
3. Optional: install and activate tavolune-child.zip the same way (see Child theme).

Upload by FTP instead: unzip tavolune.zip and copy the tavolune folder to wp-content/themes/, then activate it under Appearance → Themes.

Plugins

After activation, a notice at the top of the dashboard lists the plugins the theme uses. Click Begin installing plugins (or go to Appearance → Install Plugins), select them all, choose Install, then activate them.

The theme works without any plugin: posts, pages, menus, widgets and search are styled the same. The plugin is needed for the restaurant features (menu, tasting menu, events, gallery, team, table reservations…).

Importing a demo

The import gives you the demo site: pages, dishes, menu sections, events, team, reviews, posts, menus, widgets and the Customizer settings. Use it on a new site: it adds content next to what you already have.

1. Install the plugins above.
2. Go to Appearance → Import Demo Data.
3. Pick a demo and click Import. It takes one to three minutes; keep the page open.
4. Done: visit your site. The home page, menus and blog page are already set.

All six home pages are imported with every demo; the demo you pick decides which one is the front page and which colours and header the Customizer uses. To switch later, go to Settings → Reading and choose another home page.

Manual import

If the one-click import is blocked by your host, use the files in demo-content/:

1. Tools → Import → WordPress (install the importer when asked) → upload content.xml.
2. Install Widget Importer & Exporter → Tools → Widget Importer & Exporter → upload widgets.wie.
3. Install Customizer Export/Import → Appearance → Customize → Export/Import → upload customizer-<demo>.dat.
4. Appearance → Menus → Manage Locations: set the main, top bar and footer menus. Settings → Reading: choose the home and blog pages.

After the import: your details

The demo uses a made-up phone number, address, opening hours, menu and prices. Replace them with yours, in this order:

1. Phone number and top bar: Appearance → Customize → Tavolune options → Header and top bar. Set Phone number, Top bar text (a short line such as "Lunch & dinner Tue – Sun") and the Label next to the phone (the demo says "Gift cards available"). Every "Call" button on the site uses this number.
2. Logo and site icon: Appearance → Customize → Site Identity.
3. Colours: Appearance → Customize → Colors. The six demo home pages each have their own accent colour (see Page options); clear it there to use the Customizer colour.
4. Opening hours, reservations and set menus: Settings → Tavolune Core (see Opening hours and Table reservations).
5. Footer widgets: Appearance → Widgets → Footer column 1–4: edit the Contact details widget (address, phone, email).
6. Your menu and content: edit the dishes, events, team and reviews in the dashboard menus of the same names, and replace the placeholder photos with your own.

Menu, events, team and reviews

The Tavolune Core plugin adds four content types, a Menu sections list (for dishes) and an Event types list (for events) to the dashboard. Each content type has a Details box under the editor.

Menu sections (under Menu) group dishes, for example Starters, Mains or Wine & cocktails. Each section has its own page at /menu/<name>/, and the Menu sections widget shows each one as a photo tile with its number of dishes. The order of the sections follows the order you created them in. Event types (under Events) group events; turn on Show filter buttons in the Events widget to add a button per type.

The featured image of a dish, event or post is used on its card and at the top of its page. Use landscape photos at least 1600 × 900 px.

The menu

The Menu widget (or [tavolune_menu]) prints your dishes like a printed menu card: grouped by section, with a dotted line to the price, the description, the dietary marks and the price note. It reads your dishes, so it is always up to date.

• Show tabs adds a button per section above the menu (and "Full menu" to see everything).
• Show the dietary filter adds Vegetarian, Vegan, Gluten-free and Dairy-free buttons: guests press one to see only those dishes, and press it again to see everything. Vegan dishes also count as vegetarian and dairy-free. Only the marks your dishes use are shown.
• Only these menu sections limits the menu, for example menu="starters,mains,desserts".
• A legend of the marks and your note (allergies, service charge) are printed under the menu.
• Dishes are listed in their Order (Page attributes in the editor), then by name.

The Dish cards widget (or [tavolune_dishes]) shows a few dishes as plate-style cards with the photo, badge, marks, origin, pairing and price; the Tasting menu card widget (or [tavolune_tasting]) prints a course-by-course menu with a wine pairing per course, the price per guest and a button that opens the reservation form with that menu chosen. Courses are one per line as Course|Dish|Wine.

Table reservations

The Table reservation widget (or the [tavolune_reservation] shortcode) asks for the number of guests, the day, a time, where to sit, the occasion, the menu, the guest's name, phone and email, how to confirm (text message, phone call or email) and allergies or special requests. Guests, day, time, name and a phone number or email are required. Spam protection is built in (a hidden field and a limit on repeated sends) and no other plugin is needed.

• Times from your services: once a day is picked, the time list only shows start times inside that day's lunch and dinner services, up to your last table before closing. Closed days say so. The same check runs again on the server when the form is sent.
• Set menus and an estimate: list your menus as Name|price per guest (for example Seven-course tasting menu|85, and À la carte|0). When a guest picks a priced menu, the form shows an estimate for the whole party; the saved request gets its own estimate, worked out from your prices on the server.
• Every request is saved under Reservations in the dashboard, with a counter of new ones. Open a request to see the details and set its status: New, Confirmed, On the waiting list, Seated, No-show, Cancelled.
• Settings → Tavolune Core → Table reservations: choose the Reservations page (the page with the Table reservation widget), the minutes between times, the last table before closing, the largest party bookable online, your seating areas, your set menus, the currency symbol, email alerts and their address (empty = the site admin email), the thank-you message and the privacy note.
• Requests are not confirmed tables: you confirm each one the way the guest chose.
• Emails are sent by WordPress. If they do not arrive, install an SMTP plugin such as WP Mail SMTP; requests are saved in the dashboard either way.

The booking bar

Turn on Show the booking bar in the Hero widget. Visitors pick the number of guests and a day and press Find a table: the reservations page opens with both filled in, ready to choose a time. The Reserve a seat button on each event and the Book the tasting menu button open the same form with the day or the menu chosen.

Opening hours

Settings → Tavolune Core → Opening hours: set up to two services a day (for example lunch 12:00–15:00 and dinner 18:00–22:30). Leave the second pair empty for one service, and every time empty on days you are closed. Add an optional note (for example "The kitchen takes its last orders 30 minutes before closing").

• The Opening hours widget (Elementor) or [tavolune_hours] shortcode shows the hours beside your address and phone number. The Tavolune: Opening hours widget shows them in the sidebar or footer.
• Today's row is highlighted, and a badge says Open now · until …, Closed now · opens at … or Closed. The badge uses the time zone in Settings → General, and it is worked out in the visitor's browser, so it stays right even when your pages are cached.
• The same hours decide which times the reservation form offers.
• The week starts on the day set in Settings → General → Week Starts On; times use the time format set there.

Photo gallery

The Photo gallery widget (or [tavolune_gallery]) shows your photos in a grid, the first one large. Add one photo per line as Image|Caption|Category, where Image is the media library ID or the image address (Media → the photo → Copy URL). With Show filter buttons by category on, a button per category (for example Food, Drinks, Dining room) appears above the grid. Clicking a photo opens it full size; Esc, the close button or a click outside closes it.

Gift cards, private dining and packages

The Gift card banner widget (or [tavolune_giftcard]) shows a gift voucher drawn in your accent colour with your site name, a title, a short text, the amounts you sell (one per line) and a button. Link the button to your shop, your phone number or a contact page; the theme does not sell gift cards itself.

The Set menus & packages widget (or [tavolune_pricing]) shows price cards, one per package, with what is included and a button: private dining, wine flights, group menus. Mark one as featured to highlight it.

Page options

Each page has a Page options box in the editor sidebar:

• Accent colour for this page: overrides the Customizer accent on this page only. The demo uses it to give each demo home page its own colour.
• Colour scheme: light or dark for this page only (the Grill & steakhouse demo is dark).
• Header layout: classic, centered or contact, for this page only.

Leave them empty to follow the Customizer.

Page templates

Customizer settings

Appearance → Customize. Colours are in the Colors section; everything else is in the Tavolune options panel. Changes show in the preview before you publish them.

The site title, tagline, logo, site icon, background and homepage settings are WordPress's own, in Site Identity, Background image and Homepage Settings.

Menus

Appearance → Menus. Create a menu, add pages, services or custom links, then tick a Display location:

• Primary menu — the header. Drag items under another to make a drop-down.
• Top bar menu — the small links in the top bar.
• Footer menu — the links in the footer's bottom row.
• Social links menu — links to your profiles (Facebook, Instagram…), shown in the footer. Add them as Custom Links.

Widgets

Appearance → Widgets. Areas: Blog sidebar and Footer column 1 to Footer column 4 (set the number of footer columns in the Customizer). The plugin adds three widgets, named Tavolune: … in the widget list:

• Contact details — phone, email, address, each with a link.
• Opening hours — your hours from Settings → Tavolune Core, with an "Open now" badge.
• Dishes list — links to your dishes; the current dish is highlighted.

Building pages with Elementor

All demo pages are built with the free Elementor plugin and the theme's widgets.

1. Create a page, set its Template to Full width, no title, and click Edit with Elementor.
2. Search for the widget or open the Tavolune group in the left panel and drag a widget onto the page.
3. Edit its text and options in the left panel. Every widget has a Background option (light, paper, dark or accent colour) so sections alternate like the demo.

The widgets fill themselves from your content: Menu, Dish cards, Menu sections, Events, Team, Reviews and Latest posts show the items you add in the dashboard. List fields (prices, steps, questions…) take one item per line, with the parts separated by |, as the help text under each field shows.

Elementor's own Google Fonts loading is switched off by the demo import, so the site keeps using the theme's self-hosted fonts.

Without Elementor: shortcodes

Every widget is also a shortcode, so you can build the same sections in the block editor: add a Shortcode block and type, for example:

[tavolune_menu tabs="yes" diet_filter="yes"]
[tavolune_events count="6" filter="yes"]
[tavolune_reservation title="Book a table"]

Options are the same as in Elementor. In list options, separate items with || and parts with |. Images take an attachment ID (Media → Library → the number in the address) or a full URL.

Shortcodes: [tavolune_hero], [tavolune_dishes], [tavolune_menu], [tavolune_sections], [tavolune_tasting], [tavolune_events], [tavolune_gallery], [tavolune_reviews], [tavolune_team], [tavolune_stats], [tavolune_features], [tavolune_steps], [tavolune_pricing], [tavolune_faq], [tavolune_cta], [tavolune_trust], [tavolune_posts], [tavolune_giftcard], [tavolune_about], [tavolune_reservation], [tavolune_hours].

Block editor and patterns

Posts and simple pages use the WordPress block editor. Every core block is styled to match the theme, and the editor shows the theme's fonts and colours. Click + → Patterns → Tavolune for ready-made sections: hero with call button, three services, call to action, questions and answers, three reviews, price table and contact details. The theme also adds block styles: Card (Group), Check marks (List), Eyebrow (Paragraph) and Framed (Image).

Blog

Settings → Reading → Posts page sets the page that lists your posts (the demo uses "Blog"). Choose a grid or list layout and the sidebar position in Customize → Tavolune options → Blog. Posts show the author, date, category, share links (turn them off in Settings → Tavolune Core) and related posts.

Light and dark mode

Customize → Tavolune options → Style and fonts → Colour scheme: Light, Dark or Follow the visitor's device. With Show a light/dark switch on, visitors can switch with the moon button in the header; their choice is remembered on that device. A single page can be forced to light or dark in its Page options.

Child theme

If you want to change the theme's code, install tavolune-child.zip and activate Tavolune Child. Put your CSS in the child theme's style.css and your PHP in its functions.php; copy a template file from tavolune into the child theme to override it. Theme updates replace the parent theme only, so your changes are kept.

Small style changes do not need a child theme: use Customize → Additional CSS.

Translation and right-to-left

Every text in the theme and the plugin can be translated. The templates are tavolune/languages/tavolune.pot and tavolune-core/languages/tavolune-core.pot.

1. Easiest: install Loco Translate → Loco Translate → Themes → Tavolune → New language, and translate in your browser. Do the same under Plugins for Tavolune Core.
2. Or use Poedit: open the .pot file, translate, and save the files as tavolune-fr_FR.po/.mo in wp-content/languages/themes/.

Right-to-left languages (Arabic, Hebrew, Persian…) are supported: when WordPress runs in such a language, the layout mirrors automatically.

Updating

When a new version is released, download it from your ThemeForest Downloads page. Then either:

• Appearance → Themes → Add New Theme → Upload Theme → choose the new tavolune.zip → Replace current with uploaded; or
• replace the wp-content/themes/tavolune folder by FTP.

When the theme comes with a newer Tavolune Core, the dashboard notice offers to update the plugin. Your content, menus, widgets and Customizer settings are kept. Changes you made to the parent theme's files are lost: keep them in the child theme.

Questions

Support

Support is included with your purchase and covers questions about the theme's features and fixing bugs. It does not cover custom changes or problems caused by other plugins.

Email support@codememory.com with your purchase code and your site address. See the changelog for what changed in each version and third-party materials for credits.