Allergen rules for restaurants in Italy: what you actually have to do

If you run a restaurant, bar or hotel in Italy and Italian is not your first language, the rules on allergens are easy to get wrong — not because they are complicated, but because most of what is written about them is written for someone else.

Here is the short version, and then the part that catches people out.

The rule

Regulation (EU) 1169/2011 applies across the European Union, Italy included. For food that is not pre-packaged — which is what a restaurant serves — the information on the 14 allergens must be available to the guest before the food is ordered, and it must be in writing or otherwise readily accessible.

The 14 are: cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, peanuts, soybeans, milk, nuts, celery, mustard, sesame, sulphur dioxide and sulphites, lupin, molluscs.

Two practical points that people miss:

• A verbal answer is not enough on its own. Staff can and should be able to answer, but the information has to exist in a form the guest can consult.
• "Ask the staff" as the only statement is not compliance. A sign saying that the kitchen can provide information on request, with nothing behind it, is the arrangement that gets challenged.

Where you put the written information is up to you: on the menu itself, on a separate document available at the table, or in a digital form the guest can reach — which is why a QR code menu became the common answer.

The mistake that a translated menu makes easy

This is the part worth your attention, and it does not appear in the regulation.

Once your menu exists in more than one language, the allergen information exists in more than one language too. If the translations are done by hand — by a translator, an agency, or a member of staff — they are only correct on the day they are made.

Then you change the oil you fry in. Or the supplier changes the bread. You update the Italian because that is the version you work in. The German version now tells a guest with a coeliac condition something that is no longer true.

An allergen that is wrong is worse than an allergen that is missing. Missing information makes a careful guest ask. Wrong information stops them asking.

So the question to put to any menu system, before the price, is: when I change an ingredient, does every language change with it, in the same action? If the answer is no, your exposure grows every time you touch the menu — and it grows silently.

What a digital menu changes, and what it does not

It does not change the rule. You still have to know what is in your dishes, and no software knows that for you.

What it changes is the cost of keeping the information true. On paper, being right means a reprint every time something moves, in every language you print. On a QR menu, you tag the allergens on the dish once and correct them in seconds, and the guest always sees the current version rather than whichever laminated copy survived the season.

On FlyMenu the allergens sit on the dish record itself, so the translated versions are generated from the same source: there is no separate German menu to forget.

If you are opening in Italy

Two things worth knowing beyond the allergen rule:

• Italian food safety practice is built around HACCP, a written self-control plan for the premises. Allergen information on the menu is a separate obligation, but in practice the same consultant usually looks after both — and if you are new to Italy, an HACCP consultant is the most useful first phone call you can make.
• The menu is also a price list. Prices shown to the guest, cover charge and service included, must match what appears on the bill.

This page is a practical summary, not legal advice. The text of Regulation (EU) 1169/2011 is public, and for how the rules apply to your specific premises the person to ask is your food safety consultant or your local health authority.

You can put your menu, with its allergens, online for free: the FlyMenu free plan does not ask for a card. If you want to see how much the alternatives cost, we compared them here, with prices checked by hand.