MVC: How to get controller to render partial view initiated from the view

You should use: @Html.RenderAction or @Html.Action.

Thanks to Stephen Muecke and Erick Cortorreal I got it to work.

This is what the controller should look like:

[ChildActionOnly]
public PartialViewResult GetMenu()
{
   MenuStructuredModel menuStructuredModel = menuBusiness.GetStructuredMenu();

   return PartialView("~/Views/Shared/MenuPartial", menuStructuredModel);
}

And it may called like:

@Html.Action("GetMenu", "Home")

(Hence GetMenu() is declared in the HomeController in my example).

The controller is now called (and the model is populated) prior to the partial view is rendered.