Is the use of ‘de la carte’ (on the menu”) bad French?
I’ve seen phasing like this online
Le plat le plus cher de la carte
Does it have a special meaning or is it wrong?
It’s good French. Le plat le plus cher de la carte means “the most expensive dish on [or “from”] the menu”.
The phrase more commonly encountered in English is à la carte, which means “according to the menu”. Dining à la carte means selecting the particular dishes you want from a menu of options. It’s contrasted with table d’hôte, which is a meal made up of dishes selected by the restaurant - a set menu, usually for a fixed price.
So are the phrases à la carte an de la carte, (both of which I come across in French), interchangeable ?
They are not interchangeable, because the preposition is different, no more than “from the menu” and “according to the menu” are interchangeable in English. Sur la carte means something yet different, etc.
Perhaps you could elaborate because the ‘de la carte’ and ‘à la carte’ are misleadingly translated as ‘on the menue’, which doesn’t help explain the nuances. “Sur la carte’ presumably refers literally to what it shown on the menu.
Where is “à la carte” translated as “on the menu” ? " Dîner à la carte means that you order dishes according to/from the menu. Could you quote your original sentence?
de la carte means “of the menu” in the context of, within all the things of the menu, this is one of them.
à la carte means “according to the menu” as in, this is the price according to the menu
//i\\
There isn’t a one-to-one correspondence between English and French prepositions. Depending on the context, de should be translated as “of”, “from” or even “by”. À can be “to”, “at”, “on”, “for”, etc. Chez can be “with”, “at” or “to” (chez Hubert; at Hubert’s place or to Hubert’s place). Vers can be “towards” or “near”. Etc, etc.
There’s no easy way to get around this. You just have to learn which prepositions are idiomatic in French for which phrases in which contexts (or vice versa, if you are a French speaker learning English).
I agree that context matters but I’m sure there is some turn of phrase in English that will differentiate ‘de’ from ‘à’ in this context. Let’s have a go: So if I’m looking through a menu and I’m commenting in general terms what I can order’ from the menu ‘ I would use ‘de l a carte’. The waiter would then recommend an item from the menu and use ‘de la carte’. The use of ‘’à la carte’ would be in more specific terms about what each dish would offer. 'According to the menu’ (à la carte) you serve steak smothered in onions (‘dopé a l’oignon”).
You mean “selon la carte” 
à la carte has been translated as 'according to the menu" and there were no objections. Don’t ‘selon’ and à correspond in this case?
Perhaps I’ve been thinking of the French usage of ‘à la carte’ too broadly rather than narrowly as according to this definition. Then ‘à’ does make sense in contrast to ‘de’, and by extension also ‘selon’.
xhttps://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/a-la/
À la carte can be now used figuratively to describe someone who picks some things out of a larger set.
Bear in mind the French usage of à la to mean in the style of, in the mode of, done in the manner of. (And not just French; there are parallels in other romance languages — ragù alla bolognese ; meat sauce [prepared] in the Bolognese [manner].) This usually describes, either explicitly or implicitly, an action or process. That isn’t a firm rule, but it is a guide which may help to steer you towards making the better idiomatic choice of preposition.
So dining à la carte is dining in the manner indicated by the menu; i.e. by making a selection from among the options offered by the menu.
The individual dishes are not dishes à la carte (i.e. dishes on the menu); they are dishes de la carte (i.e. dishes from the menu, though you could certainly translate this into good idiomatic English as dishes on the menu). But your action in ordering and eating some of those dishes is dining à la carte , not dining de la carte .
In English you could of course say “dining from the menu” and you would be understood. I think you’d be understood in French too, but it’s not an idiom that a French speaker would choose. Because you are describing actions - making your selection, ordering, eating - à rather than de is the preposition which will seem apt to a francophone.
You might think that Tripes à la mode de Caen and ragù alla bolognese are things, not actions. But to the French and Italian minds, what is being referred to here is not the finished product on the plate but the preparation of that product.
Off-topic, but I remember my first visit to France, 50 years ago, when we sat in a wayside restaurant and asked for the ‘menu’.
Neither of us spoke French and the restaurant was one where all the diners sat at a single table. To us, a ‘menu’ was a card with a list of available food. To them, the menu was simply whatever they were dishing up that day, there was no choice.
The ‘carte’ was, of course, the bill.
This is a good example of the problems that translation algorithms have.
Thanks for the clarification USD1. It makes perfect sense now.
Prepositions are the slipperiest words in languages. Oddly enough both de and à can, in the right context, be translated as from. Ordering à la carte is ordering from the menu. On the other hand de is often translated as from, while here it means of.
Always a challenge to translate prepositions between languages, not just French/English. Even within English I am seeing things like “this chart is based off that data” which makes no sense to me (I use “based on”).
fascinating.
I think that I have been using the term “a la cart” backwards all my life.
Maybe.
I have used the term to mean: rather than choose the complete dinner item on the menu, I am going to make individual selections of each component. So rather than choose the single menu item that says Steak with baked potato and green beans, I decide go go “a la cart” and order 3 things from the menu, steak, mashed potatoes and a salad. I would expect to pay more for this and perhaps not be allowed to make all possible choices.
If I understand this thread, I would be ordering de la cart if I broke up a menu selection. But maybe not. Can someone guide me in how to order a complete menu item vs ordering each part of the meal separately?
Many restaurants over here, especially those in hotels where dinner may be included in the room rate, offer two menus. “Table d’hôte” and “a la cart”
Table d’hôte will be a fixed price menu with limited choices - a couple of starters, three or four entrees, and several deserts. A la cart will offer a much wider choice and will be more expensive. Mixing the two menus is normally fine, but there will be an extra charge for a more expensive option.
I’m not sure that there is a word or phrase for what you are describing other than “substitution”. Table d’hote or prix fixe gives you a limited number of options (possibly only one option for each course) so that perhaps you can choose from two starters, three main courses and two desserts for a fixed price. A la carte is something more like the menus at some steakhouses I’ve been to, where you order a steak that comes with just a steak - if you want potatoes or broccoli or a salad, they are ordered and charged for separately.