Speaking French
How to tell a restaurant about a food allergy, in French
If you are in the chair right now
Je suis allergique aux arachides. Vous pouvez vérifier auprès de la cuisine ?
I'm allergic to peanuts. Could you check with the kitchen?
If that gets brushed off
C'est une allergie grave. Je ne peux rien manger qui en contienne.
It's a serious allergy. I can't eat anything containing them.
Say allergique, not «je ne supporte pas» — an intolérance is accommodated when convenient, an allergie is not negotiable. Allergique doesn't change with your gender, so there is one less thing to get wrong under pressure. Swap the food freely: aux fruits de mer, aux fruits à coque, au gluten, au lactose, aux œufs.
Every phrasebook has the word for allergy. None of them mention the two things that actually protect you in France: the difference between how a kitchen hears allergie and intolérance, and a list the restaurant is legally required to keep and will hand you if you ask.
If you need more than one line
softest
Est-ce qu'il y a des arachides dans ce plat ?
Are there peanuts in this dish? «Il y a … dans» is the everyday way to ask what something contains.
neutral
Je suis allergique aux fruits à coque.
I'm allergic to tree nuts. Note the pair: arachides are peanuts, fruits à coque are the tree nuts — French menus separate them.
neutral
Vous pouvez demander en cuisine, s'il vous plaît ?
Could you ask in the kitchen, please? The question that actually protects you.
firmest
S'il y en a, je prendrai autre chose.
If there are any in it, I'll have something else. The little «en» stands in for the allergen — and gives them an easy way to say yes.
Two things worth knowing
The word for allergy is the easy part.
Ask for the allergen list — it legally exists
Since 2015, every restaurant in France must be able to tell you which of the fourteen declared allergens each dish contains, in writing. «Vous avez la liste des allergènes ?» is therefore not an exotic request; it is asking for a document the law already made them prepare. No phrasebook mentions it, and it is the strongest move available to you.
Allergie and intolérance are not heard the same
Both words translate cleanly and land completely differently. An intolérance is widely heard as a preference to work around if the kitchen has time; an allergie is a medical constraint with a protocol behind it. If yours is real, say allergie, add grave if it is serious, and ask them to check rather than to remember.
What Chloé actually said
What you have to get done
- Say what you can't eat
- Ask what's in a dish
- Have them check with the kitchen
Chloé
Hello! How can I help you today?
You
Hello Chloé. I'm allergic to peanuts and absolutely cannot eat any.
Chloé
Thank you for telling me, I'll be very careful about your safety; which sauce or dish would you like to check?
You
Thank you, it's very important. Could you tell me exactly what's in the satay sauce and check with the kitchen that there's no risk of peanut contamination?
Chloé
I'll check the exact ingredients and the contamination risk with the kitchen before serving it to you; please bear with me and I'll come back to you.
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: Chloé 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
