Two things do most of the work: a written allergy card in the local language that names the allergen and the foods it hides in, and asking the person who cooks rather than the person who takes the order. Apps help you narrow a menu quickly, and none of them should be treated as a safeguard — they read what is printed, and the pork in the broth is rarely printed. In the EU, restaurants are required to tell you about 14 named allergens on request; in the US, that requirement does not extend to restaurant menus at all.
Last updated August 23, 2026
This is practical travel guidance written for people who already know how to manage their own allergy. It is not medical advice, and nothing here replaces what your doctor or allergy specialist tells you about travelling, carrying medication, or what to do in an emergency.
The rules vary enormously and knowing which regime you are in changes how you ask. In the European Union, Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 requires food businesses to provide allergen information for 14 named allergens — including cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, peanuts, soybeans, milk, nuts, celery, mustard, sesame, sulphites, lupin and molluscs — and that requirement covers non-prepacked food served in restaurants, though it may be given verbally as long as a sign points you to ask. The UK applies the same 14 allergens. In the United States, federal allergen labelling applies to packaged foods and does not require restaurants to disclose allergens on menus at all, so asking directly is the only route. Elsewhere, assume nothing is required and ask as though nothing is.
A translation app translates what is printed on the menu. A menu app can go further and infer likely ingredients and flag common allergens from a dish's composition, which is genuinely useful for eliminating twenty dishes quickly. Neither one knows what happened in that kitchen this morning. Recipes vary by region, by restaurant and by cook; the stock might be made with fish, the sauce thickened with nut paste, the pan wiped rather than washed. Use an app to shortlist and to communicate, never as the final check.
Every cuisine has staples that carry an allergen without ever announcing it on the menu. Knowing the local ones turns a vague worry into a specific question.
A card in the local language remains the single most effective tool, because it removes both the language barrier and the risk of a well-meaning summary. Write it short and absolute: name the allergen, name the common local foods it hides in, and state clearly that even a small amount is a problem if that is true for you. Have a native speaker check it — a machine-translated card that says something ambiguous is worse than no card, because it produces confident reassurance. Keep it on paper as well as on your phone: paper survives a dead battery and can be carried into the kitchen, which a phone usually cannot.
Timing matters more than people expect. A kitchen at 20:30 on a Saturday cannot give your question the attention it needs; the same kitchen at 18:30 on a Tuesday often can. Ask before you are seated, so leaving is still easy. Ask about the specific mechanics rather than in the abstract — whether the fryer is shared, whether the sauce is made in-house, whether the same board and knife are used — because “is it safe?” invites a polite yes and “is the fryer shared with the breaded fish?” invites a real answer. If the answers are vague, that is an answer too.
Carry more medication than the trip needs, in hand luggage, in its original labelled packaging, and check the destination's rules for carrying adrenaline auto-injectors — several countries treat them differently and a few require documentation. A short letter from your doctor, translated, covers both the airport and the hospital. Save the local emergency number: it is 112 across the EU and in many other countries, 911 in the US and Canada, 999 in the UK. Check whether your travel insurance treats an allergic reaction as a pre-existing condition, because some policies do.
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MenuVista flags common allergens and dietary conflicts across a whole menu, so the conversation with the kitchen is about two dishes instead of forty.
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