·Adiamo Studio
How to show allergens on your menu
Name each allergen from the EU list in words beside the dish, use those same words on the page and in service, and follow your country’s rule for what the room must still provide.
Answer first
Next to each dish, write the allergens it actually contains, in words a guest can read without a key: wheat, eggs, milk, almonds, sulphites. In the EU, allergen information is mandatory for food you serve, including plates that are not prepacked. The list is Annex II of Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 — fourteen categories, with a few narrow exceptions. Your country decides whether that information is a menu line, another written form, or a verified spoken answer. Put the same words on the website. The page helps a guest decide before they book. It does not close the duty in the room, and it does not let the floor guess.
A guest with a serious allergy reads the menu the way other guests read the prices. A row of coloured dots, a footnote that says “ask your server”, and a PDF photo of last season’s carte all fail that read. They either interrupt the floor for every plate, or they leave.
This guide is which names to use, where to put them, and what a website line does not settle. How the rest of the carte should be structured — sections, prices, a page rather than a lone PDF — is in how to put your menu on your restaurant website.
How a written line differs from an icon or a verbal offer
Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 makes allergen information mandatory for non-prepacked food — the usual restaurant plate — under Article 44. Member states may choose the means: a label, other written material, tools, or, where national rules allow it, a spoken answer the guest can rely on. The European Commission’s notice on the regulation says that if a country has not set those means, the information has to be written, easy to see, and cannot be supplied only when the guest thinks to ask. That notice is Commission Notice 2017/C 428/01. The regulation itself, including Annex II, is the consolidated text of Regulation 1169/2011.
| Words on the dish | Icons only | “Ask us” and nothing else | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What the guest can do alone | See “contains wheat, milk” | Hope they remember your key | Interrupt service, or skip you |
| A dish that changes | Edit the line the same day | The icon survives after the recipe does not | The answer depends on who is on |
| Before they arrive | The same words on the website | A code on the table they cannot see yet | No information until they are seated |
| When the country requires writing | You are close to the requirement | Often still opaque | The Commission notice says this is not enough where no national rule allows it |
| When the floor is asked anyway | They can repeat the line | They still need the words | They need a list, not a memory |
The Commission’s short account of the same duty is on its page about mandatory food information: for non-prepacked food, the allergen particulars are mandatory, and other particulars are mandatory only if your country adds them.
When to write it on the page
Put the words on the menu
- You serve plates that are not in a labelled pack.
- Guests book before they can ask a person.
- More than one language is on the site, and the allergen names exist in each.
- The kitchen can point at a line and say it is still true tonight.
Do not publish a line yet
- The recipe changed and nobody checked the new sauce.
- A supplier sheet is missing and the team is about to guess.
- The only “list” is a legend of dots with no words.
- A daily special is called at the pass and never written down. Say so, and have the spoken answer ready.
How to write the line
Recipe
What is actually in it
Name
The Annex II word
Page
Beside that dish
Floor
The same sentence
Change
Edit before service
- 1
Start from the plate, not from a master legend
For each dish you publish, list what it contains. A single key at the bottom helps only after the dish itself names its allergens. Guests do not memorise a legend.
- 2
Use the category name from Annex II
The fourteen are: cereals containing gluten (wheat, including spelt and Khorasan, plus rye, barley, oats, and their hybrids), crustaceans, eggs, fish, peanuts, soybeans, milk (including lactose), the named nuts, celery, mustard, sesame seeds, sulphur dioxide and sulphites above the annex threshold, lupin, and molluscs. Peanuts are their own line, not a kind of nut. The nut line names almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, cashews, pecans, Brazil nuts, pistachios, and macadamia or Queensland nuts. Write “almonds”, not “nuts”, and “wheat”, not only “gluten”.
- 3
Leave the exceptions to the annex, not to memory
The list carves out a few cases, such as fully refined soybean oil or sulphites only above 10 mg/kg or 10 mg/litre, expressed as total SO₂ in the product as consumed. Do not apply those from habit. If you do not have the supplier’s specification, name the allergen.
- 4
Put the same words on the website
The page is where a guest looks before they travel. A photo of the printed carte hides the words inside an image, which is why the code on the table should open a real page — see what your menu QR code should open. If the site has a second language, the allergen names have to exist there too, not only in the language of the kitchen. That decision is in when a restaurant website needs a second language.
- 5
Give the floor the same sentence
Service should be able to read the line you published, or a sheet that matches it. A website does not answer the table. National rules may still require a spoken confirmation. The person on the floor needs the words either way.
- 6
Change the line when the dish changes
A new garnish, a different bread, a wine reduction, a fryer shared with something else you have decided to declare. Update the page, the paper carte, and the sheet on the pass in the same service. A special that is not on the menu gets a spoken answer from that sheet, not a shrug.
Where each copy of the words should live
| Place | What “good” looks like | What to fix |
|---|---|---|
| On the dish | “Contains wheat, milk, almonds” | A dot, or the word “allergens” with no names |
| Website menu | The same names, in text | A scanned PDF, or a page that says only “ask us” |
| Second language | The same dishes, the same allergens | A translation of the story and a silence on the allergens |
| Paper carte and pass sheet | Matches the page this week | Last season’s print, still in the drawer |
| Spoken answer | Repeats the written line | Whoever is nearest invents it |
A public menu can carry those words beside the dishes, on the same page as the price and the way to book. The card below is one restaurant’s live site: the useful version of this guide is a carte a guest can read before they ask anyone.
When the allergen line fails
- The icon has no words. The guest does not know your code. The kitchen does not want to explain it at 8pm.
- “May contain” on everything. If the line is identical on every dish, it tells the guest nothing about this plate.
- “Nuts” when the dish has almonds. The annex wants the name. Peanuts are not that name.
- The website and the pass disagree. The guest quoted your page. Service quoted a different sauce.
- A special is invisible. It is sold all night and written nowhere. The allergy question arrives with the order.
- Someone guessed the sulphites. The threshold is in the annex. A guess is not a specification.
What a website allergen list does not do
It does not replace your country’s rule on how the information must be given in the room. It does not cover every allergy a guest may have — Annex II is the legal list for this duty, not a medical list of all possible reactions. Coconut and pine nuts, for example, are not in the nut line; a guest can still need an answer about them, and you should say what you know rather than invent a legal exemption. It does not make a shared fryer safe, and it does not authorise a disclaimer that cancels the line above it. Prepacked items you sell to take away, such as a wrapped product packed before the sale, can sit under different labelling rules than a plate cooked to order. This guide is the plate and the menu page.
Frequently asked questions
Is a website enough to meet the EU allergen rule?
No. Article 44 makes the information mandatory for non-prepacked food, and your country chooses the means. A clear page helps guests before they arrive. The room still has to provide whatever your national rule requires.
Can I only tell people if they ask?
Only if your country’s measures allow a spoken answer, and the floor can actually give it. The Commission’s notice says that where a country has not set the means, the information must be written and cannot be provided only on request.
Should I write “gluten” or “wheat”?
Name the cereal: wheat, rye, barley, or oats. “Gluten” is the reason those cereals are on the list. The guest and the annex both need the cereal.
Are peanuts a nut on this list?
No. Peanuts are their own category. The nut category is the named tree nuts: almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, cashews, pecans, Brazil nuts, pistachios, and macadamia or Queensland nuts.
What do I do about sulphites in wine?
The annex covers sulphur dioxide and sulphites above 10 mg/kg or 10 mg/litre, as total SO₂ in the product as consumed. If you do not know that you are under the threshold, say the dish contains sulphites.
Can Adiamo print the allergen line for me?
You write it. A draft menu is not a finished allergen list. Before you publish, put the names beside the dishes your kitchen will confirm, in each language the page offers.