Nut Allergies - Valencia

[MyNuttyAllergens]

Hi
We are heading over to Valencia (staying in an apartment) with my 2 children (9&11) who have nut & Sesame allergies.

Does anyone have any recommendations on where to eat out, which tapas dishes and types of desserts could be nut free?

I've found plenty of pizza places!

Would be good to get some ideas to have some cooking free days (if possible) & to try local dishes.

TIA

I can’t help you in terms of where to eat etc as haven’t been to Valencia. However I can help regarding travelling with allergies. My daughter has a severe nut air born peanut allergy. She’s needed adrenaline on a flight before due to a naive passenger who thought they knew best!!
my advice would be to get the allergies translated into local languages and laminated onto a card in your bag. You can then show the restaurant and be happy in the knowledge they understand.
hopefully this way you can still
enjoy eating out and feel safe.

have fun

All restaurants and bars with food (called "cafeterías", although there's no need to queue up with a tray) in Spain are required to list their allergens using the standard 14-item EU list, which includes peanuts, tree nuts, and sesame as separate categories. You can get the list as a printable image in English here https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-food-allergy-icons-including-the-14-allergies-outlined-by-the-eu-food-133812026.html and in Spanish here https://astarteinformatica.com/alergenos.php.

Unfortunately, while the list of items is standardised by the EU and each of them is assigned a number, the icons and the order in which those appear in graphics are not, as you can see from the above two links. So memorise the numbers: a dish with 5 next to it has peanuts, 8 has tree nuts, and 11 has sesame. The list was adopted by the UK, but just to be sure, here's the numerical list from the food standards agency of an EU member state that uses English 😉 https://www.fsai.ie/enforcement-and-legislation/legislation/food-legislation/food-information-fic-(labelling)/list-of-14-allergens

If you go into a smaller place with a handwritten menu the allergens might not be written down (in some bars with tapas there's just a chill counter where you can say or point at what you want and they reheat it for you), but on the other hand they are probably cooking from scratch and know exactly what went into the food. In general Spanish food does not use a lot of peanuts, but hazelnuts and almonds are quite common. Chicken with almonds is the most common dish in a Chinese restaurant in Spain for some reason. I have no idea what anyone anywhere uses sesame for other than on hamburger buns.

If in doubt, you can ask for confirmation that a dish does not contain one of those items:
¿no contiene cacahuetes? (no con-tea-EH-neh caca-WETT-ess) for peanuts
¿no contiene frutas secas? (no con-tea-EH-neh FROO-tas SEC-as) for tree nuts (the official Spanish term is "frutas de cáscara" but nobody says that).
¿no contiene sesamo? (no con-tea-EH-neh SESS-uh-mo) for sesame

If you're looking at a menu trying to find the above words and the Spanish looks a bit funny, it's probably in Catalan, which is the formal written version of the local Valencian language. Peanuts are cacauets, tree nuts are fruites seques or fruites de closca, and sesame is still sesamo. The Spanish version will be on the other side of the page.

Thank you, this is very helpful.

If you haven't already, inform your airline ahead of time, I've had advanced notice that the flight was nut free in the past. If they don't tell passengers 24 hours ahead then there's a good chance passengers will have bought food containing nuts to eat on the flight (like most people I'm quite willing to avoid but but I need to know in advance as we buy food at the airport or sometimes bring from home).

In the past I have boarded a 3 hour flight which didn't carry food to buy only to have them announce no nuts, I had a sesame chicken wrap to eat though as they didn't mention sesame I ate it, and the man next to me ate nuts anyway. Much better to tell them ahead so passengers can plan

Yep. We always take our own food for the flight. Luckily it's short haul for us but we always let the airlines know in advance, at check in, when boarding and after boarding too!
And we are also v lucky that it's not an airborne allergy either.

I bring my own disinfectant wipes and wipe down the stow away tables, seat handles etc..