Ingredients and Allergens on a Restaurant Website

The menu people read before they book

Someone with a nut allergy chooses a restaurant the way everyone else does, by reading the menu online first. So does a parent whose child cannot have dairy.

Many find dish names and prices, no ingredients, and a PDF uploaded in the spring.

This month there is often a second menu too: the holiday set menu, written in November and added to the site in a hurry, sometimes only as a photograph on Facebook.

When the online menu leaves things out or disagrees with the printed one, it fails the people who rely on it most.

Who reads the menu for ingredients

• People with food allergies, who check every dish before choosing.
• Parents of children with allergies, deciding where the family can eat.
• People who cannot eat gluten, for whom a dusting of flour matters.
• Organisers booking for a group, on behalf of guests they barely know.

The fourth carries the most risk. An organiser books for colleagues whose allergies they may not know, relies on the website, and passes on whatever it says.

Where online menus go wrong

Most restaurants have several versions of the menu: the printed one, a PDF, a web page, and copies on review and delivery sites. Only the printed one changes whenever the dishes do.

Dishes change in small ways that matter. A supplier substitutes a bread made with sesame, the chef finishes a salad with toasted pine nuts, a sauce gains a spoonful of mustard.

Names hide ingredients too. A house dressing, a pesto, a gravy or a dessert called simply torte tells an allergic reader nothing.

What to list for each dish

List the main ingredients in plain words, not the full recipe. Then mark the common allergens each dish contains.

A sensible checklist is the list Health Canada uses for packaged food: peanuts, tree nuts, sesame, milk, eggs, fish, crustaceans and shellfish, soy, wheat, mustard and sulphites, along with other sources of gluten.

Packaged food must declare those on its label. A plate from a restaurant kitchen is not covered by the same labelling rules, which is why customers look to the website instead.

Say where cross-contact is likely as well: a shared fryer, nuts in the pastry section, one grill for fish and meat.

One list, kept by the kitchen

Online menus drift because nobody owns them. The chef owns the recipes, the manager owns the printed menu, and the website belongs to whoever set it up.

Make the kitchen's own list of dishes and ingredients the source. Update the website from it whenever it changes, on the same day as the printed menu.

Publish the menu as a web page rather than a PDF or photograph. A page can be corrected in minutes, reads easily on a phone and can show when it was last checked.

A worked example

A comedy club in an old theatre downtown serves dinner before its early show. In December it sells holiday party packages to office groups: a reserved table, a three-course set menu and the show.

The package page listed the courses by name only: soup, roast turkey or a vegetable wellington, and chocolate torte. Early in the month the pastry cook switched to a hazelnut version, and the printed table menus said so.

An organiser booking for twenty colleagues checked the website for a guest with a tree nut allergy and saw nothing to worry about.

At the table, a server reading the printed menu spotted the hazelnut and asked. The guest had a fruit plate instead, and nobody was harmed.

The cause was simple. The manager had written the package page once, in November, and the kitchen's change never reached him.

The package page now lists ingredients and allergens for every course, the kitchen reports any change before it reaches a plate, and the booking form asks about allergies.

Where the disclaimer fits

Most menus carry a line such as please tell your server about any allergies, or our kitchen handles nuts and cannot guarantee any dish is free of them.

Keep it. It is honest about cross-contact, and it prompts the conversation that matters most.

But a line at the foot of the page does not correct a wrong ingredient list, and a reader with an allergy will rightly rely on the list. The disclaimer backs up accuracy; it does not replace it.

Your own obligations are a question for a lawyer or your insurer. Everything here is general information, not legal advice.

Holiday and seasonal menus

Treat a three-week set menu exactly like the main one: ingredients, allergens and a date, on a web page rather than an image.

Put it on the website before Facebook, and link the post to the page. A photograph of a printed menu cannot be searched, read aloud by a screen reader or corrected without making a new one.

When the season ends, take it down or mark it as finished, so nobody plans a January dinner around a December dish.

Ask at booking, confirm at the table

The website starts the conversation; it should not end it. A booking form or confirmation email can ask about allergies in the party, putting the question in front of the kitchen days ahead.

For groups, ask the organiser to pass the menu link to every guest. The person with the allergy reads it far more carefully than the person booking.

And the server's question at the table still matters, because recipes and suppliers change faster than any website.

The counter-case

A restaurant whose menu changes daily, written on a chalkboard, cannot keep a detailed list online. It can list the dishes that stay, explain how allergies are handled and invite people to call ahead.

A short menu with few allergens needs less: a line under each dish may be enough.

And no website replaces care in the kitchen. The aim is only that what people read before booking is at least as accurate as the printed menu.

Keep the online menu current, list ingredients and allergens, and treat the disclaimer as a backstop.

Before the next menu change

1. Compare the website menu with the printed one.
2. List main ingredients for every dish.
3. Mark the common allergens each dish contains.
4. Make the kitchen's list the single source.
5. Replace PDFs and photographs with a web page.
6. Ask about allergies on the booking form.
7. Keep the disclaimer below the menu.

Step four is the one that keeps the rest true. Without one list that the kitchen changes first, every other version drifts, and the website drifts furthest.

Keeping hours as easy to find as the menu is covered in a restaurant site whose hours are in a Facebook widget.

Frequently asked questions

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