If you can make it work without driving up the inventory cost, then fair enough. But it's still annoying to have to go through 4 pages just to see the entire menu. I want 4-5 different plates or so to choose between for the main course. If the restaurant is any good, I'll be fine with a Fish, Cow, Chicken, Vegetarian dish, and the chef can make what is fitting for the season and current availability of produce. Some of the best meals I've had there wasn't even a choice.
I really don't go to restaurants to research the difference between 4 similar but not identical dishes. I want to pay someone to know how to make a really good meal, and make it perfectly for me.
As a chef, these are the sort of preferences we in general have as well.
My current menu is 4 entrees, 4 mains and 4 desserts(lunch changes weekly), same for dinner.
The slight variations we have are gastronomic menu (a small portion of each dish), a plates menu (set courses) or a standard pick what you want to order and pay for a full sized your probably useto.
Edit to add:
This is so that we can concentrate on the meal. Each section only creates 8 actual dishes(for lunch), 4 are off the dinner menu and are quite rare to see ordered (due to cost difference from lunch), but those 4 lunch menu items I can spend a lot of time focusing on. Yes I might send 50-100 meals in one service, but if they are the same 4, I can create something of very high quality and consistent across the entire service.
I really don't go to restaurants to research the difference between 4 similar but not identical dishes. I want to pay someone to know how to make a really good meal, and make it perfectly for me.