Eating out with allergies in Dublin: how to ask, check and plan

When you eat out in Dublin with a food allergy, the most important step is still telling the staff, every time, and asking about the specific dish you want: under Irish and EU law, a food business must be able to tell you which of the 14 regulated allergens are in the food it serves. Use Mosey to shortlist places that diners and venues have marked for your needs, and to keep a list of places that looked after you well, but never rely on an app, a tag or a menu on its own.

What are restaurants in Ireland required to tell you about allergens?

Food businesses in Ireland, including cafés, takeaways and food trucks, have to be able to give you information on 14 allergens if they are in the food:

1. Cereals containing gluten (such as wheat, rye, barley and oats)
2. Crustaceans
3. Eggs
4. Fish
5. Peanuts
6. Soybeans
7. Milk
8. Nuts (tree nuts such as almonds, hazelnuts and walnuts)
9. Celery
10. Mustard
11. Sesame
12. Sulphur dioxide and sulphites
13. Lupin
14. Molluscs

You are entitled to ask, and a good place will answer clearly and check with the kitchen rather than guess. Two limits are worth understanding. The list covers those 14 and not every possible allergy, so if yours is something else, you need to ask about it by name. And what is in a dish is a different question from what it might pick up in a busy kitchen: a shared fryer, a toaster, a chopping board or flour in the air. Ask about both.

How to ask about allergies so you get a useful answer

Vague questions get vague answers. "Is there anything I should avoid?" puts the work on a busy server. A specific question gets a specific answer.

• Name the allergen and how serious it is. "I have a severe peanut allergy" tells the staff far more than "I can't have nuts".
• Ask about the dish, not the menu. "Does the chicken curry contain any nuts, including in the sauce or the garnish?"
• Ask about how it is cooked. "Is it fried in the same oil as anything with batter?" matters a great deal for gluten.
• Ask them to check with the kitchen. A server's memory of the recipe is not the same as the chef's.
• Check again when the food arrives. Confirm that it is the dish that was adjusted for you.

If the answers are uncertain, or the staff seem unsure, that is an answer in itself. Choosing something else, or somewhere else, is always the right call. Bring whatever your doctor has told you to carry.

Shortlisting Dublin places before you go

Mosey's dietary filters sit first in the filter sheet: vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, dairy-free and more. They draw on two sources: what a venue has declared about itself, and what diners have tagged when they rated it. That makes them a good way to find places worth calling, and nothing more than that. A tag is somebody's experience on a particular day. It is not a safety guarantee, and it cannot tell you about this evening's kitchen.

Other things on a place's page help you judge before you commit:

• The menu, where the place has put one up, so you can see whether there is anything you could safely eat before you ask.
• Recent ratings, especially any that mention dietary needs and how the staff handled them.
• Photographs of the dishes, which show sauces, garnishes and sides that a menu description leaves out.

Then ask the place directly. Where a place has turned on messaging, you can message it before you book from its page, and the answer stays in writing. Otherwise, ring at a quiet time, mid-afternoon rather than in the middle of service.

Booking a table with an allergy

Say it when you book, and say it again at the table. Mentioning it in advance, in a message or a call, helps the kitchen plan, but the conversation with the person taking your order is the one that counts on the night.

Quieter times help. A kitchen at three in the afternoon, or at the start of an evening, has more attention to give your order than one at eight on a Saturday. If you are booking for a big night, consider the earlier sitting.

Group meals with mixed dietary needs

A birthday dinner for fourteen with three allergies, a vegan and a coeliac is where things go wrong, usually because the details are relayed by one person from memory. For larger bookings arranged as a gathering on Mosey, the organiser gets a link to share with the group, and each guest fills in their own allergies and requirements, so the kitchen gets one written list instead of a message thread. See planning a group celebration.

Even then, each person should still mention their allergy when they order.

Takeaway and ordering ahead with an allergy

Ordering on a phone removes the conversation, which is the part that keeps you safe. If you order ahead or get a takeaway, contact the place first about your allergy, check the order when you collect it, and do not assume that a dish you have eaten safely before is made the same way this week. Recipes and suppliers change.

Keep a list of places that looked after you

When a place handles your allergy well, you want to be able to find it again, and to remember what worked. Save it to a list and add a note: what you ordered, what they changed, and anything useful about how they handled it. Lists are private unless you share them, which makes them a good way to pass trusted places to family members with the same needs. See how lists work.

When you rate a place, mention how it handled your needs. A line such as "the staff checked with the chef and changed the sauce without fuss" is exactly what the next person with the same allergy is looking for.

Try it on Mosey

Filter for your dietary needs in Dublin, read the menus and recent ratings, ask the place directly, and save the ones that looked after you.