Speaking English
How to tell a restaurant about a food allergy, in English
If you are in the chair right now
I have a shellfish allergy. Could you check with the kitchen for me?
The word «allergy» is what flips the kitchen into its protocol.
If that gets brushed off
It's a serious allergy. I can't have anything with shellfish in it.
«Can't have» — English eats and drinks with the verb have.
Use the medical noun. «I don't really do shellfish» or «I'm not big on nuts» are preference phrasings, and they get preference treatment. An allergy, named as one, triggers a different conversation in the kitchen — often the manager.
Every phrasebook has the word for allergy. None of them warn you that English-speaking kitchens triage by wording: the same fact, phrased as a preference, gets preference treatment. The register you choose is the safety mechanism.
If you need more than one line
softest
Does this have nuts in it?
The «in it» matters — «do you have nuts?» asks about the pantry, not the plate.
neutral
I have a peanut allergy.
Swap in: shellfish, tree nuts, gluten, dairy, eggs.
neutral
Could you double-check with the kitchen?
Double-check — the natural verb here, and the question that actually protects you.
firmest
If it does, I'll go with something else.
«Go with» — the everyday ordering verb — and an easy way for them to say yes.
Two things worth knowing
The word for allergy is the easy part.
Allergy is a protocol word
Most English-speaking restaurants run a defined allergy procedure — separate prep, a manager visit, sometimes a printed matrix — and the word «allergy» is what starts it. «I'd rather not have» starts nothing. If your condition is medical, say the medical noun and let the machinery you cannot see do its work; in the UK and Ireland the fourteen-allergen labelling rule backs you in writing, and «could I see your allergen information?» produces it.
English eats with «have»
You can't have dairy, you're having the fish, does it have shellfish in it — the verb have carries eating, ordering and containing all at once, and learners underuse it in favour of eat and contain, which sound clinical at a table. One more preposition earns its keep here: for is how you order around a menu — «I'll have the soup, but no cream for me».
What Marta actually said
What you have to get done
- State what you cannot eat
- Ask what is in a particular dish
- Get them to check with the kitchen
Marta
The opening — and the moment to get the allergy on the table, before any ordering happens.
You
The allergy named as one, plus «including traces» — the two words that make the kitchen take cross-contact seriously.
Marta
The protocol starting: nothing gets recommended until the kitchen answers.
You
«I'd appreciate it if you could» — the polite-pressure frame that repeats the request without repeating yourself.
Marta
Confirmation of the exact behaviour you asked for.
You
Closing the loop: the answer comes back to you before anything is committed.
Marta
The whole agreement restated — kitchen first, then the order.
The whole conversation, unedited
A real run in the app, nothing scripted on the waiter's side. The transcript above is taken from this recording, and the objectives tick off on screen as they are met.
Turn sound on to hear it.
Now say it yourself
Reading that is not the same as producing it with someone waiting, which is the entire difficulty. You can have this exact conversation in the app: Marta is a third of the way through, and you have three things to get done.
It is free, it takes about a minute to start, and the first attempt is allowed to be terrible.
Practise this conversation
