As someone not allergically challenged (thankfully), the way restaurants, cafes and even my gym (yes) have responded to the instruction to “get better at allergies” is frustrating me. Partially because it’s absurd. Partially because it’s not really effective. And partially because the tick-box way most places deliver it makes the enshittification of hospitality more blatant than it might otherwise be.
Allergies are a serious problem. I’ve got a friend with a nut allergy, and while he doesn’t always seem all that bothered, I (and the others around him) very much am on his behalf. The other day I had to remind him that a cornetto had nuts on the top of it. So I’ve solved it. I’m proposing two new restaurants where the problem won’t occur. Because it can be done, and it will be done.
The first is The Full Fourteen: every dish deliberately contains all fourteen declarable allergens. Alternatively try Next Door: the same menu, but made mostly from potato.
Restaurant concept 1: The full fourteen
Restaurant concept 2: Next door
Has anyone got a spare restaurant or two to lend me, so I can try this out
This is, quite obviously, an absurd solution. While I really would like to try it, and the menus I came up with had me crying with laughter at my own joke (the only approval I need), we probably do need a better solution than we have.
A surly youth handing over an iPad (it’s an Android) so the legal liability sits with the allergic one, fetching someone from head office to oversee the cooking of a specific meal or marking most things as “may contain” and the rest with warnings that “there might be cross contamination” doesn’t manage the risk. It just means The Full Fourteen isn’t an original idea at all.
PS. I’ll admit to getting a little bit of help from AI to put the menus together. I won’t let anyone take the concept from me.
