How to vertically align text with icon font?

In this scenario, since you are working with inline-level elements, you could add vertical-align: middle to the span elements for vertical centering:

.nav-text {
  vertical-align: middle;
}

Alternatively, you could set the display of the parent element to flex and set align-items to center for vertical centering:

.menu {
  display: flex;
  align-items: center;
}