Guide · Allergies
Recording allergies when a restaurant booking is made
Tuesday afternoon, the phone: a table for four on Saturday, and one of them cannot eat sesame. Whoever took the call is off on Saturday. The question this guide answers is how that sentence travels from the phone to the pass without depending on anyone's memory.
Published · A practical guide, not legal advice.
What the food rules ask, and what they do not ask of a booking
The Food Standards Agency's allergen guidance for food businesses, which covers England, Wales and Northern Ireland, is about the food. Businesses must tell customers if anything they serve contains one of 14 listed allergens — celery, cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs, mustard, peanuts, sesame, soybeans, sulphites above a set level, and tree nuts.
A meal served in a restaurant is what the guidance calls non-prepacked food. For that, the allergen information has to be available for every item. It may be given verbally, but only with a written notice in a clearly visible place telling customers how to get it, and the FSA's own view is that written information supported by a conversation works best. The guidance also expects staff to be trained on allergens.
The stricter labels — a full ingredients list on the pack — are for food packed on the premises before anyone orders it, such as a sandwich in the chiller, which the FSA calls prepacked for direct sale. A plate ordered at the table is not that.
None of this tells you how to record an allergy at the time of booking. That part is good practice, and it is where most slips happen: not in the kitchen's knowledge of its dishes, but in the message never getting there.
Where to ask
- On the phone: one question at the end of every call, asked the same way each time — “Anything we should know, any allergies?”
- At the door: the host asks again as the party is seated. A note from Tuesday is a reminder, not a replacement for asking the person at the table.
- Online: Slotora's table booking page has no allergy field of its own, but its optional note — “Anything the restaurant should know?” — suggests allergies. Read the notes on the day's bookings, and move an allergy from the note to the guest's card: the note stays on that one booking, while the card is what raises the alert and the briefing line.
- For a set-menu evening or a tasting, the event's own booking form can ask about dietary needs and allergies up front, because the menu is fixed in advance.
Where to write it so it travels
- 1
On the guest, not just the booking
A note on Saturday's booking is gone after Saturday. Written on the guest's card, the sesame allergy is there the next time they book too, whoever takes the call.
- 2
It flags itself on the booking
An allergy on the card shows as an alert on that guest's booking at the host stand, so the person seating them sees it before the menus go down.
- 3
The briefing names them
The pre-service briefing lists tonight's guests with an allergy on their card, next to the large parties and first visits. The kitchen hears it before service, not with the plate halfway out.
- 4
The day sheet goes to the pass
Printed for the kitchen, the day sheet carries each booking's allergies, diet and access needs beside the time, table and covers.
What a booking system is not
Slotora records what a guest told you, and makes sure the people on shift see it. It does not know your dishes, hold your allergen matrix or decide what a guest can eat. Which plates contain sesame is your kitchen's knowledge and your written allergen information; the booking only makes sure the right question is asked of the right plate.
An allergy note is also health information about a person. Write what helps you serve them, nothing more, and expect it to be part of what you hand over if they ask for a copy of their data.
Allergies at booking: short answers
Does recording the allergy at booking make us compliant?
No, and nothing in a booking system can. The FSA guidance is about the information you give on your food and the training of your staff. Recording the allergy helps the right person ask the right question on the night.
We are in Scotland or Ireland. Does the same guidance apply?
The page we read says it applies to England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Restaurants in Scotland and in Ireland should read their own food authority's guidance; the habits in this guide work the same way.
A guest mentions a dietary choice, not an allergy. Same place?
Yes, on the card, in the diet field rather than the allergy one, so the kitchen can tell a preference from a risk.
What the guest card holds · The pre-service briefing · Taking phone bookings · All guides