À la carte is a French language

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 loan phrase

Loanword

A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...

 meaning "according to the menu

Menu

In a restaurant, a menu is a presentation of food and beverage offerings. A menu may be a la carte – which guests use to choose from a list of options – or table d'hôte, in which case a pre-established sequence of courses is served....

", and used in

• A reference to a menu of items priced and ordered separately, i.e. the usual operation of restaurants (In contrast to a table d'hôte
  Table d'hôte
  Table d'hôte is a French loan phrase which literally means "host's table". It is used as restaurant terminology to indicate a menu where multi-course meals with only a few choices are charged, at a fixed total price. Such a menu may also be called prix fixe . The terms "set meal" and "set menu"...
  
  , at which a menu with limited or no choice is served at a fixed price.)
• To order an item from the menu on its own, e.g. a steak without the potatoes and vegetables is steak a la carte

The phrase was adopted into English in 1826, predating by a decade the common use of the French language

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 loanword

Loanword

A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...

 "menu

Menu

In a restaurant, a menu is a presentation of food and beverage offerings. A menu may be a la carte – which guests use to choose from a list of options – or table d'hôte, in which case a pre-established sequence of courses is served....

".

Other industries

"À la carte" has also been adopted in other industries to refer to a sales model where customers are allowed to select individual components for purchase rather than being required to purchase predefined packages. A notable example is Leica Cameras "Leica À la carte" for their M-System

See also

• table d'hôte
  Table d'hôte
  Table d'hôte is a French loan phrase which literally means "host's table". It is used as restaurant terminology to indicate a menu where multi-course meals with only a few choices are charged, at a fixed total price. Such a menu may also be called prix fixe . The terms "set meal" and "set menu"...
  
  , the opposite of À la carte
• List of French words and phrases used by English speakers
• pro rata, a method of billing or other calculation based on proportional usage