Now is the time for restaurants to embrace free-from diners
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Version 0 of 1. Arise, allergenic Brits! Grab your forks, coeliacs! New EU legislation means it is now easier for the millions of Brits with allergies, food intolerances and coeliac disease to eat out. The new rules, introduced this weekend, mean that restaurants and other catering outlets must provide information on which of the 14 major allergens – including gluten, milk, peanuts, eggs and shellfish – are in each of their dishes. Good news, surely? Eating out shouldn’t be a privilege for the digestively fortunate. I have lactose intolerance, which puts me at the lucky end of the scale. If I accidentally eat steak fried in butter, say (after the waiter swears it won’t be), I’ll get painful stomach cramps. For coeliacs and people with allergies, the stakes are much higher. Even a speck of gluten can leave a coeliac in pain for days. For food allergy sufferers, inadvertently eating these ingredients can mean a trip to A&E. Ten Brits die every year from anaphylaxis caused by food. Yet not everyone agrees that helping people avoid pain is a good thing. Enter the Daily Mail and this screecher: “UK diners face £200m tab for EU allergy rules”. This is nonsense. I’ve seen the information this story is based on, and there is no indication that diners will pick up the tab for the new rules. The British Hospitality Association complains that “if staff spend just five minutes dealing with each [allergy] request”, it will cost the industry £200m a year. It is sad that a leading restaurant association sees allergenic customers as a nuisance, there to chip away at profits. How is working out the cost of talking to each customer even possible? What about diners faffing over the wine list, or saying “Can you give us two minutes?” – don’t they cost just as much? At sit-down restaurants, profits aren’t made by skimping on time talking to diners. They’re made on the wine markups, the espressos at the end of the meal and – you know what? – the big fat tip for helping an allergenic diner find something they can eat without collapsing. To be fair to restaurants, the EU rules have meant a lot of paperwork, time and money training staff. I can see why many chefs see them as a gigantic pain in the arse. But free-from diners aren’t going away. Far from costing the industry money, we’re gagging to go out there and spend it. People with allergies and intolerances currently eat out less than the national average, according to research by the Allergy and FreeFrom show. Coeliac UK estimates that coeliacs (and the friends they eat with) could be worth £100m to restaurants happy to serve them. Chefs: there’s gold in them gluten-free hills! “I think some chefs should give a shit a bit more,” says Dan Doherty, the executive chef at Duck and Waffle in London. Doherty gets lots of free-from requests, and “instead of saying no, we try to embrace it”. He has even made the restaurant’s namesake dish both gluten- and dairy-free. “The reception we’ve got from people has been amazing – it’s rewarding.” Chef Anna Hansen, who has lots of gluten-free dishes on her menu at the Modern Pantry in London, says: “I’ve got friends who are coeliac and I know how hard it is.” Take care of your free-from diners and you’ll be rewarded with repeat visits and gratitude on social media. While we’re here, let’s dispel a few myths about free-from diners and the new laws. There is a persistent idea that people are “making it up” or cutting out foods to be “interesting”. Believe me, I find my intolerance as dull as you do. I wish it would disappear so I could eat chocolate buttons all day. What is brilliant about the rules is they actually make things easier and quicker – I can discreetly ask for the allergen info or look it up online, rather than parroting: “Does the sauce have dairy in it?” for the millionth time. Yes, there are people avoiding gluten for vanity reasons, or misusing the word “allergy”, and they don’t help the cause. But that is their choice, as long as they’re polite about it. Here is what the rules don’t mean. You don’t have to reveal the secrets of your recipes or the spices in your signature sauce. We’re not talking quantities, just whether there is any milk, peanuts or eggs in a dish. You don’t have to list them all on the menu itself … and you don’t have to change ANY of your dishes to make them free-from if you don’t want to. Diners have a part to play, too. We can do our homework and go to places that cater for us: “If you’re a vegan, you don’t go to Hawksmoor,” says Hansen. Be polite. Most restaurant staff want to help you and are still getting to grips with the changes. Above all, let them know at the start of the meal. “Just be 100% transparent when you arrive,” says Doherty. “Don’t say you’re allergic to nuts halfway through the meal.” With a bit of understanding on both sides, the rules needn’t be a pain. Instead, they could usher in an era where everyone can eat out without worry – not just those lucky enough to have Teflon tums. |