The best resource I found was the Official D&D Tavern Generator, which includes menus. Really this is all you need for your heroes if they are in a conventional fantasy setting.
I have scoured official D&D products to pull out useful stuff. Originally I thought I'd have to pore over every sourcebook and module, but it turns out that Dragon Magazine has had a couple of articles that really cover this quite well. This will be a compilation of those articles, and some other interesting stuff I found along the way.
If you want just one article to cover all your bases (aside from the above tavern generator), go get Dragon Magazine #418. There's an article in there called "Inns in an Instant". It is utterly fantastic. It has everything: charts for making inns, names for innkeepers, lists of inn names, lists of NPCs, atmosphere charts... it's unreal. There's three pages of food and drink options. Here's an example of just one of the 9 charts of food and drink:
For 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons, food, drink and lodging are covered on page 158 of the player's handbook as well as on the free online basic rules site under "Equipment". I have tried to assemble the food under the guidelines of "Poor", "Modest", "Wealthy" and etc. I also found a few articles in old issues of dragon magazine on magic food and drink. I will include them as well, following the mundane listing.
Food
Squalid 3 cp
- Humble pie (filled with tripe or cow heel)
- Acorn soup
- Rice and peas
- Green chili stew
- Grilled snake and macadamia
- Frogs on skewers
- Onion soup
- Lizard gruel with nutbread
- Crisped worm skewers and potatoes
- Porridge
- Mushroom stew with corn bread
- Leg of mutton and goose eggs
- Beef stew and sourdough
- Squash and fish soup
- Mutton meatloaf
- Rabbit and baked pumpkin
- Bread-bowl stew
- Bog-beetle dumplings
- Wayfarers' cake
- Wren pot pie and cattail soup
- Thistle salad with roasted grubs
- Barbecued gopher legs on a stick
- Grilled wild boar chops
- Broiled salmon and potatoes
- Roast chicken and potatoes
- Smoked sausage, goose eggs and dates
- Cheese pie and onion soup
- Baked boar and greens
- Minted pea soup
- Baked goat flank
- Rabbit stew and willow crackers
- Lemming and berry soup
- Honey braised boar ribs
- Venison and bean stew
- Buffaloaf and honeyed corn
- Rack of lamb platter
- Pork chop & curds
- Elven bread
- Baked loin of pork with gravy
- Roasted cod and mashed potatoes
- Beef steak and kidney pie
- Clams and garlic
- Baked pheasant with leeks
- Smoked salmon and wild berries
- Chocolate covered ants and roast pelican
- Barbecued tiger fish and papaya
- Roast chicken with thyme
- Stuffed trout, cabbage, succotash and plum pudding
- Braised beef and pears with ginger
- Meerkat dumplings with sage
- Roast stag in antler sauce
- Poached and peppered quail eggs
- Spiced monkey tail and cashews
- Roast heron and chopped sundew
- Lobster in tomato cream sauce
- Crab-stuffed lobster tail
- Roast pheasant in oyster sauce
- Poached duck with farro
- Fried ostrich and egg omelet
This is food you might see hobgoblins or orcs eating.
- Crunchy critters and grub pudding
- Smashed guts and cabbage
- Not-so-old rice in sour goat’s milk
- Fried chunks and lard bread
- Salted eyes and carrot ends
- Bone and blood mix stew
- Lettuce, liver, and lung pie
This is stuff you might eat in a drow enclave, svirfneblin community or a dwarven hall.
- Fluorescent fungus salad with cave grubs
- Diced blind eel and deep salts
- Amber lichen and softrock bread
- Translucent crayfish stew
- Crimson moss cakes and cave jelly
- Crustacean broth with ironloaf
- Roasted deep beetles with algae dip
- Toasted salamander in mineral pepper
- Arachnidumplings and fried fungus (Drow would not eat arachnidumplings, as they revere spiders)
- Toadstool steak tainted with myconid essence
- Lobe of grell
- Deep rothe steak (A rothe is a special type of cattle bred in the underdark)
- Feywine Raisins (15 gp) Fey grapes are so lush that even when they become raisins they retain their essence. If you put these in a goblet and stir, they instantly become wine.
- Carceri snails (7 sp)
- Poached stirge eggs (5 sp)
- Boiled shank of bebilith (5 gp)
- Death Cheese (10 gp) Made from catoblepas milk.
Sweetheart's Confection (10 gp) A heart-shaped fey confection that is split into two halves and shared between lovers before they part company for a time. They gain an emotional bond until they see each other again, sensing the other's emotions.
Feybread Biscuit: This is hard but nutritional, and gives you extra hit points when you heal for the next 12 hours.
Droth: Also known as “demon’s blood,” droth is a black, sticky substance made from the blood of demons. When smeared on the eyes, it cures certain sorts of blindness in some individuals, and when ingested, it can help to cure diseases. It is also effective in battling green slime.
Moonhoney: The dung of Abyssal groundworms, it is a smoky-tasting and delicious. Its name comes from its consistency and appearance , and it gains sweetness in direct moonlight. It can neutralize poisons and is an ideal trail food for wayfarers of all kinds, who can readily carve it into handy chunks.
Blood Apricots: These grow in Hell or in places where a lot of blood has been spilled. The fruit is a rich orange-red and it grows darker if given a taste of blood. You can put your own blood in it (storing hit dice). Within 12 hours, whoever eats the fruit gains hit points.
Drinks
Cheap Stuff
- Grog (rum with water, maybe with lemon or lime)
- Dregs and water ("dregs" are defined as the sediment in a liquid, such as wine or coffee)
- Goblin spit ale
- Turnip wine
- Miller’s moonshine
- Dwarven ale
- Spiced ale
- King’s ale
- Trollbane ale
- Desert star wine
- Wight wine (I imagine this has a goofy undead wight on the label)
- Rice wine
- Fey wine
- Wild orchid wine
- Lotus leaf wine
- Stonesulder wine: This yellow-hued, sharp-flavored liquid is made by the sap from demon plants from the Abyss, which is then fermented in wooden barrels.
- Cactus spirits
- Fharlanghn spirits
- Swamplight spirits
- Desert lily brandy
- Berry brandy
- Goat’s milk and brandy
- Herb and mint tea with brandy
- Peach wine
- Tangerine brandy
- Fireweed whiskey
- Wanderer whiskey
- Bacon beer
- Dwarven double draft
- Scorpionweed reserve
- Corellon reserve
- Moss mead
- Lemon mead
- Honeysuckle mead
- Moradin mead
- Silvermoon mead
- Sundew mead
- Sparkling Evermead
- Glitter mead
- Shadow stein
- Softrock spirits
- Lichen liqueur
- Mineral mead
- Moradin mead
- Algae ale
- Deeps ale
- Mushroom moonshine
- Fungus wine
- Viperwine: A drink that demons enjoy, but is lethal to other humanoids. Sometimes humanoids will take an antidote before drinking it to avoid the lethal effects.
- Fekk: A strong githzerai liquor.
- Razorvine Wine: Made from the sharp vines that grow in the city of Sigil .
- Malefic Mead: Made in an Abyssal brewery, lethal to non-demons. On a successful saving throw, the drinker will be violently ill or roaring drunk for extended periods of time.
- Deva's Bile: Made in an Abyssal brewery, lethal to non-demons. On a successful saving throw, the drinker will be violently ill or roaring drunk for extended periods of time.
- Baatezu Blood Wine: Lethal to non-humans.
- Greengage Cider: A potent brew from the orchard of the halfling goddess Sheela Peryroyl. It is extremely powerful.
- Willow tea
- Black tupelo tea
- Plum leaf tea
- Crowberry cider
- Apricot cider
- Plum cider
- Berry cider
- Cranberry cider
- Spiced apple cider
Ghost Ale: This drink is popular in the Shadowfell. It is a dark ale that smells of musty soil but it is rich and inviting. When you drink it, you become slightly insubstantial (ignore difficult terrain and move through occupied spaces). If you drink 3 ghost ales in 5 minutes, you become unconscious for an hour. Your spirit leaves your body. It is invisible, has phasing and ignores damage (except radiant or fore). It can't attack. If your spirit takes damage, you take that damage when you wake up.
Goodale: This gets its name from the fact that it is brewed in good-aligned monasteries. It reduces fatigue (on the exhaustion chart in 5e, perhaps).
Astral Mead: A sweet sparkling beverage that restores the body. A flask has the nutritional value of full day's worth of food and water. For 12 hours you have a +2 to endurance checks and gain extra hit points when healing.
Gorgondy Wine: A gnomish wine that offers glimpses of the past to those who drink it.
Sonata Wine (fey): You cannot describe the scent or taste of this wine, which fills your head with beautiful music. For 1 hour you have a beautiful singing voice
Sweet Water (20 gp) A small glob of white jelly that purifies toxic food and drink, removing any poison or disease after one minute.
Firebelly (10 gp for a flagon) A harsh liquor distilled by the inhabitants of cold climates. It keeps you from suffering the effects of the cold.
Burrfoot's Nut Brown Ale (20 gp for a flagon) A full-bodied ale originally created by a halfling named Nedelmeir Burrfoot. It produces a mild euphoria in drinkers that will mellow even the most taciturn dwarf.
Mage's Brew (80 gp) A thick nutty liquor that increases one's concentration and has little to no aftereffect.
Evermead (200 gp for a glass) This pale golden liquor is favored by elves. Those who drink it are imbued with youthful vigor. It negates old age stat penalties for 12 hours.
Drowned Man Stout (300 gp) A full-bodied ale enjoyed by orcs and evil humanoids. The living enemies of the orcs would be sealed into a barrel . The orcs find that the resulting beer acquires a heady quality. This drink provides temporary hit points for 3 hours or until lost.
Beer of Eternity (750 gp) This beer is infused with radiant energy that actually would damage undead if they drank it. Living creatures who drink it become invisible to undead for 1 hour. It can also help with drained stats (in 3e terms it removes a negative level).
Oathbeer (3,000 gp) Dwarves drink this as part of a ceremony to seal a pact, or as a sign of friendship and devotion. All involved swear an oath before a priest, shed blood into the beer, and the cup passed around. Oathbeer binds the drinkers to the oath, as long as they partake of their own free will. Violating the pact brings a curse upon the oathbreaker.
Other Items
- All liquids poured into the cup are effected with a purify food and drink spell.
- Once per day, drinking from the mug cures the drinker of poisons.
- 3 times per day, the drinker can be affected by the spell owl's wisdom, which gives a +4 to wisdom for 1 minute per level.
Here's how Gary Gygax did a menu in the classic Temple of Elemental Evil adventure. It includes lots of references to kingdoms near the village of Hommlet:
The Official D&D Tavern Menu Generator - This might be all you need
Magical Food & Drinks, 3rd edition style
ENWorld - Food you would find in a D&D tavern
Forgotten Realms Food & Drink
More Forgotten Realms Food & Drink (great list!)
Dragon Magazine #414: "Inns in an Instant"
Dragon Magazine #334: "Drunkards & Flagons"
Dragon 323, 414, 429, 430
Dungeon 60, 164
Temple of Elemental Evil, For Duty or Deity, Adventurers Vault, Heroes of the Feywild, Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium.