Restaurants and allergy. AIBU?

[Hannahpandle]

Genuinely not sure what’s an appropriate response - went out for tea last night to a national chain restaurant. As we were seated, the waitress asked if we had any allergies and I said yes, soya intolerance. We ordered, and when the food arrived I could feel my mouth tingling. It certainly wasn’t a dish you’d expect soya to be in, so I looked on their website and sadly it says on the allergens page “contains soya beans.”

So we called the waitress over and she said “oh I’ll go and ask.” Then she came back and said “chef says it doesn’t contain soya.” I said I could FEEL that it did and it also says it on the website too, and she said “well chef says it doesn’t.” I showed her where it says “contains soya beans” and she said “well what do you want me to do about it?” I asked for the manager and she said she wasn’t in but she would get the supervisor. By this point I was uncomfortable and itchy. The supervisor was suitably embarrassed and said I wouldn’t have to pay for my meal and would I like something else but I didn’t want anything by then.

We finished up quite quickly, and asked for the bill. The supervisor said she had rang her manager who said she would write the bill off on this occasion but please could I leave my name and address and phone so she could phone me tomorrow.

Came home and had rotten tummy ache all night after it and am still a bit itchy today.

could they have handled it better?

Was the allergen not listed on their menu? Just on the website?

Did it not have allergy indicators on the menu, or is soya not a common enough one to be included?

This is very dangerous and the restaurant minimised it. Please report to your local food standards agency. If this happens again someone could die

Yes only on the website and not on menu as I absolutely wouldn’t have ordered it.

DH and I both have allergies (DH’s are anaphylactic), and we always check the allergy menu before we order anything, so I’m surprised you didn’t.

But having said that, their response wasn’t good. I’d assume that maybe an ingredient they use contains soya (and the chef didn’t realise that, and so responded that it didn’t contain soya beans). But they should have reliable and accurate information on site that they can access, rather than them needing to be told by the customer what allergens are in what dishes.

Soya is a common allergy but the menu itself doesn’t mention it. It’s only when you go and look at the allergy page on their website. And the waitress had asked me specifically!

I thought that telling the waitress when she asked, was enough. Im intolerant rather than anaphylactic but all the same i avoid soya avidly. I didn’t think id have to get the allergy chart up myself to make sure that the waitress was telling the truth…

I have allergies and you need to hit them hard so they'll listen and take it seriously.

You write to the manager and explain what happened, that you checked multiple times etc.

Say you were unwell and needed time off work of you did , quote your daily rate and ask them to compensate you for it and then report it to the food standard agency. This is very serious.

I have done this 3x and will continue to do it every time I'm given food in allergic too. The blase attitude around allergies is appalling.

I would be raising (polite) hell about this.
Go to the anaphylaxis and allergy UK websites and check where you need to go from here.

That’s awful. I’d flag to the council / food standards agency.

I wonder if they know the repercussions for negligence.

I bet they were trying to disguise it in the dish so "eeking" it out with soya, that is why it wasn't displayed on the.physical menu, but on the website very sneaky of them. Its probably higher up than the chef or the manager.

The restaurant handled this terribly. However as an allergen sufferer you should have been provided with the information before you ordered. (They have a legal requirement to have this documented)
I would never order without checking the written allergen info first. You assumed and with an allergen you should never assume. You have to protect yourself op and not rely on someone being paid minimum wage. I know that’s not fair but it is sadly the way of the world.

What’s the point of the waitress asking about your allergies, if the kitchen staff don’t know what is in the dishes they are cooking, @Hannahpandle? Tha’s what I’d be asking the manager when they ring you!

What was the dish?

Its bad that the chef actually doesn't seem to know whats in his food

I was in a restaurant in Falmouth where a dish was described as mussels in a white wine and garlic sauce. When it arrived it had cream in it. I'm only intolerant to the fat in cream so I fished my mussels out and gave DH the sauce. I mentioned it to the waitress who couldn't have apologised any more. I was a semi open kitchen so I could see the chef's face when she told him. I was obviously an error as they changed to chalkboard to add cream.

If it is a chain they probably won't know what's in a pie or burger etc.

Pizza! It had beef on it and the beef sauce had soya in it. I knew as soon as I ate it and yet it’s hardly something that you’d expect to contain soya and as I say, the waitress had already asked and then didn’t mention it when I ordered.

Soya is an emulsifier so used in processed foods.

That’s terrible! I was ordering in the Everyman cinema for me and some friends, one of whom has a mild to moderate cow’s milk allergy. She’d asked for the vegan cheese on her burger and the sesame bun instead of brioche and the member of staff couldn’t have been more concerned when I mentioned it. He brought out a copy of their allergy policy and went through all the ingredients with her. And that was just at a cinema! You’d expect better from a restaurant. I hope they do get in contact with you OP.

To be fair to the restaurant @CharlotteCChapel mussels in white white and garlic always contains cream and butter. It’s a traditional French recipe but the menu should have the contains dairy indicator. Restaurants do not have to list each ingredient in the description they do need to indicate the 14 notifiable allergens (which include soy). The allergens should be available to anyone who asks doesn’t have to be on every menu I should point out. Can you tell I did my four course 2 weeks ago.

ive seen increasing numbers of restaurants around here with signs saying that unfortunately due to their kitchen set up they cannot serve people with allergies

Yes, that's really not good enough and I would be flagging it to the chain's HQ.
My DS has multiple food allergies and as a general rule we choose chains over independent restaurants because things are usually better from an allergy perspective. There's usually consistency from branch to branch, both in terms of policy/staff training and ingredients. The food may not be super high quality but if you buy say spaghetti bolognaise from Zizzi in Portsmouth you know it's going to be the same as spaghetti bolognaise from Zizzi in Aberdeen. And you don't generally need to rely on the serving or kitchen staff to tell you what's in it as most chains will, in my experience at least, either give you a physical allergy menu or direct you to the online one and ask you if you have checked before you order.
I'd say there is a training issue at this particular branch.
Incidentally @Hannahpandle itching starting so soon after ingestion sounds very much like an IgE mediated allergy to me - have you had skin prick testing or blood tests done? I'd take those symptoms pretty seriously if I were you.

Of course this is unacceptable! You order pizza, you tell the staff you have a soya intolerance, and soya both isn't listed as an ingredient in the restaurant's menus AND the staff deny it's in it!

It's so vanishingly unlikely someone would doubt all of that and check the special online allergies section - they should be making sure this isn't minimised.

Ds1 has a severe nut allergy and, in my experience, restaurant/food server staff generally struggle with the concepts of cross contamination in preparation and ingredients in things that the kitchen use, but haven't prepared from scratch - like the soya in beef gravy. If it's not an overt ingredient they just ignore it. It's extremely frustrating and potentially lethal. I agree about reporting this to trading standards and environmental health if that's appropriate.

@minnienono Yes I’ve seen that too. The restaurants just cannot know everything and small ones won’t take the risk of being sued. Or dead customers. They fill up well enough without the huge worry. I wouldn’t expect most people reheating a pizza they didn’t make to understand or memorize the ingredients. If you know there’s more detail on line, it’s good advice to look at it I would have thought. I feel a bit sorry for restaurants really.

Horrible response from them. But I wonder if something that they use, a by product, doesn't contain soy but might be made in a place where there is soy therefore not 100% soy free 🤔 still doesn't excuse their response tbh