“Can I Eat There?” That’s a question more than 10 million UK adults and children with food allergies and intolerances have to ask themselves whenever they want to eat out. And the answer has never been easy to find.
Yes, you can phone ahead and ask the restaurant, but the answer depends on who picks up the phone and how busy and knowledgeable they are. Or you can sometimes find an allergy menu online, but it’s complicated to follow.
And let’s face it – until you see the menu, you don’t really know if you can eat there. What if gluten-free just means they’ve removed the bread from your sandwich? What if there’s only one dairy-free or egg-free dish – and it’s something you don’t like?
So we decided to answer this question for once and for all by giving people with food allergies the information they need to make sensible choices about where to eat. Like menus you can filter by allergy. Customer reviews from other people with food allergies. Forums for chatting and sharing experiences and advice. And the opportunity to put your questions and concerns to our expert partners.
We recognise that it’s not easy for restaurants to cater for food allergies (we’re expensive, time-consuming and frankly a bit of a risk). So we’ve partnered with Allergy UK to help restaurants get the support and training they need to be truly allergy friendly.
Whether you have a food allergy, you have children with food allergies, your best friend is dairy intolerant or your husband’s a coeliac – we hope that Can I Eat There? helps you to answer this question and eat out with confidence. Enjoy!
The Can I Eat There? team (may contain nuts)
Nicky Granger
Founder of Can I Eat There? and EpiPen-wielding mother to five-year-old Gabriel, who has eight severe food allergies. spent 20 years in advertising agencies before starting her own communications business. She hopes the site will help people with allergies find restaurants – and restaurants discover people with allergies.
Scott Muncaster
With more than 20 years working for some of the UK’s biggest national restaurant brands, is ideally positioned to understand the issue of food allergy from the restaurant’s point of view. No food allergies himself, but with more and more people developing allergies in their 40s, we’re keeping a close eye on him.
Christina Wood
liaises with our restaurants, and manages our restaurant database and allergy menus. Christina is a coeliac, produces her own range of gluten-free foods, is a passionate campaigner for better gluten-free choices in restaurants, and is mother to a teenage Harriet who has a peanut allergy.
Nicola Neal
Nicola is an experienced marketeer who branched out into blogging when her son Zac was struggling with allergies and food intolerance. She set up Feeding My Intolerant Child to help other allergy mums find the support that's so crucial when your children are unable to eat 'normally'.
Ali Harper
Mum to Freddie, who was diagnosed with cows’ milk protein allergy (CMPA) at 10 months, has spent 16 years in marketing and communications, has run a number of successful multinational campaigns for well-known brands, and manages to do it all while bringing up three boys.
Taz Coleman
Allergic to apples and bad design, and plagued by Oral Allergy Syndrome, has spent the last 20 years designing award-winning work for businesses around the world – and now she’s doing it for Can I Eat There? Taz designed our logo and website and creates all our advertising and communications.
