Vegan given butter in restaurant

[Loveanavocado]

Went out for dinner this evening with dd’s.
dd1 has been a vegan for years. The rest of us are vegetarian, although I’m verging on veganism too tbh.

we went for dinner this evening, to our local. We often eat here and know the staff really well. So they know our dietary requirements.

this evening we ordered a dish and were all eating it. The waitress came over laughing and told us it had butter in it!!

dd1 was horrified and began to get upset. The waitress took the dish away and went to the kitchen. She returned and said “the kitchen are making another but they’ve got cross with me and asked why I told you it had butter in it!’

this has infuriated me!! Firstly given butter when told vegan. But even worse..told by the waitress that the kitchen would’ve not told the customer it had butter in it!!

AIBU?? What if dd had an allergy????

my dd2 has severe allergies (has had anaphylaxis a few times now!) so how am I ever going to trust them now??

I don’t know what to do! I don’t want to make a fuss as it’s our local in a very insular community

My friend eats vegan food when out; because she is breast feeding a baby with CMA. If she was served food with butter it would make her baby unwell.
The baby also has other allergies (soy being one) eating out should be a nice treat not a minefield. Every place that serves food has to have an allergy book indicating exactly what is in each dish (I'm also allergic to some very standard foods)
Where we live there's two restaurants we can eat at safely out of hundreds!
I would not hesitate to complain to the manager and higher up

I'm in the industry and this is completely unacceptable. At the very least, write a strongly worded letter of complaint to the owner. If it were me, I'd want to know what my staff were up to - and I would not find it remotely funny.

I'd be annoyed too OP. My DS has non IgE mediated allergies to eggs and dairy and IgE mediated allergies to a number of things including nuts. So his default option for desserts when eating out is to pick something vegan and then ask if it contains nuts or any of the other things he might have an anaphylactic reaction to. He is not so sensitive to eggs and dairy that he needs to worry about minor cross contamination so something vegan prepared in a kitchen that also handles animal products is not a problem. However, a dish that is actually made with eggs or dairy would make him unwell so I'd be mightly pissed off if something that is supposed to be vegan turned out to contain butter.

When you order something vegan it is not unreasonable to expect it to actually ne vegan whatever your reason for that choice. Just because other people might not share those views doesn't mean they are entitled to ride rough shod over them. If you are teetotal and you order non alcoholic wine you are entitled to receive that. A Jewish or Muslim person ordering a chicken dish should be confident that they won't be served pork instead, and so on. What you order should be what you are given regardless of why you placed that order. And if the kitchen can't deliver what you've ordered then they need to tell you that before you start eating.

It seems they know you don’t have any dairy allergies so it’s not fair to assume they might do the same with an allergy. Of course this shouldn’t have happened, and the kitchen staff should be told off, but I’m not sure re the waitress. She obviously didn’t think it was a joke really as the kitchen staff said don’t tell them and she immediately went and told you. The laughing could have just been an awkward reaction to this.

It's not that we don't understand it, we don't believe in it and think it's wrong (and harmful). To be upset over eating something healthy and nutritious is silly. A first world problem and in my opinion shallow.

There are even several posters on this site with the word 'vegan' in their usernames, like it's a fad or something to show off or be proud of. I mean what is that all about? Just....why? They need to advertise it for some reason. You don't see 'meat eater' or 'carnivore' in usernames. Not even vegetarians use 'vegetarian' in their names.

A Jewish or Muslim person ordering a chicken dish should be confident that they won't be served pork instead, and so on
We always asked in new places if there is any pork in it. Most people do because bacon etc are not always mentioned.

People cannot compare this to allergies/intolerances. If customer says they are allergic whole different process is put in to prevent cross contamination.
Pp is right though thay absolute mlst of places cannot possibly prevent 100% of cross contamination. We used to very clearly statethere are x and y in kitchen and we cannot guarantee no crosscontamination. Same like factories do on packed food.
It is treated differently to dietary preference so if anyone has allergy/intolerance and is just irdering vegan option, the extra safe process will not be there.

Waitress was laughing trying to make aituation lighter. I would bet that she wasn't actually finding that funny.

OP you're getting a hard time because you're comparing a food preference to:

• an allergy which could kill, and a
• religious need

Clearly your DD being given a bit of butter accidentally is nothing like a Muslim being given pork, or an allergic person having a life threatening reaction!!

It's how you communicate it that's earning you a hard time.

Just to add, while it can be upsetting or annoying, there is no sin accidentally eating pork for muslims. So it's also not actually, thinking about it, comparable to allergy or intolerance.

If my kid had a life threatening allergy, I'd mention that to someone cooking them food.

It's really not the same.

The post you're quoting doesn't say anything about life threatening allergies though.
It says intolerance which can make you be ill.
If you order vegan, it has no milk in it. Or bloody shouldn't do!

If it's a veggie dish I'd assume it's had butter in on more than one occasion and they just haven't told you.

Another boring vegan thread. Eat at veg or vegan only restaurants if butter offends you so much. Horrified LOL, get a grip!

I think you need to make a bit of a fuss. Speak to the manager and ask them what they're going to do to ensure it doesn't happen again and how they will educate their staff. I think it shows the staff do not understand how to deal with allergies. You were physically ok with eating it this time but the next person ordering it in good faith may not be. Unfortunately if you have allergies in the family then I don't think I would be able to trust them enough to eat there again.

I know several people who have a dairy intolerance who would just say vegan rather than having to explain they can't eat dairy. Same with people saying they're vegetarian when they don't want to explain halal.

Giving dairy to a vegan isn't just about a "preference" - it's like sneaking bacon into the food of a strictly religious Jewish person and then laughing about it - totally disrespectful and demeaning of other people's rights to determine which beliefs they want to follow.

You should write a formal complaint letter to the management. End your letter with "I would be reluctant to publicly name and shame you given the community we are all part of, but what can you do to ensure we can ever trust you again as otherwise it's going to be awkward if we have to explain to friends why we won't come to a meal with you."

I wouldn’t go back. Not much else you can do other than send the manager an email letting them know what happened. I would explain to your daughter that this is something that can happen, and possibly has many times without her knowing. There will always be a possibility of cross contamination or someone miss reading ingredients at a restaurant or someone’s home.

Most places offer vegan and veggie dishes now. Lots of people are lactose intolerant so can't have butter.

If they can't offer an alternative, they should say so and confirm what they can offer. There's no excuse in this day and age to feed people butter they don't want when there are so many suitable alternatives.

So is horse, so I guess you thought the horse meat scandal was silly? Dog is also nutritious and healthy, would you be happy to be served it when you had ordered pork?

When I was a waiter that would have been investigated thoroughly and likely led to the guilty party being fired.

Report to food standards as it's an allergen issue: https://www.food.gov.uk/contact/consumers/report-problem/report-a-food-safety-or-hygiene-issue.

I'd have let it go as no harm done if they had been concerned and remorseful, but they are clueless and irresponsible so it needs a report.

I agree. Don't understand why some posters are belittling this situation to be honest.

It was a mistake, albeit their response was very poor!
I'd email so it's in writing because of the response. Personally wouldn't go there again til the chef went though.

What will You do, OP?

Funny that no one has mentioned the 'insular community' aspect.

I have learnt to be wary of that.
In my small community, a private complaint to the management would be best approach, and then decide where to eat out in future as separate issue.

Public shaming actions would just lead to a row (like this thread) that backlashed on complainer, too. There would be no benefit to anyone in any way from public shaming (in my observation).

But maybe OP is so angry that she doesn't care. Maybe publicly expressing her outrage is the most important action OP wants to do. I truly don't understand human beings so I try not to advise them.

Did the menu say rhe dish was vegan, or was it something that usually is?
Either way veganism is a lifestyle fad and not vaguely comparable to an allergy or even intolerance.