1. The short version

We use 8 of the 14 statutory allergens. Plant-based isn’t the same as allergen-free. If you have an allergy, please tell us before ordering — we’ll guide you through what’s safe.

2. What we don’t use

UK law identifies 14 allergens that food businesses must declare. Five of them are animal-derived: crustaceans, eggs, fish, milk, and molluscs. Because we’re 100% plant-based, none of these come anywhere near our kitchen — they aren’t in any dish, any stock, any sauce, and they’re not stored on the premises.

We also deliberately don’t use lupin, the 14th allergen. More on that in Section 4.

That leaves 8 of the 14 we do work with — listed in the next section. Six of fourteen don’t apply to us at all. That’s the simplification of going fully plant-based; it’s not the same as being allergen-free.

3. What we do use, and how to know which dish has what

These 8 statutory allergens are present in some of our dishes:

• G — Cereals containing gluten (wheat, rye, barley, oats, spelt, kamut)
• N — Tree nuts (almond, hazelnut, walnut, cashew, pecan, brazil, pistachio, macadamia)
• P — Peanuts
• So — Soybeans
• Se — Sesame seeds
• Cel — Celery and celeriac
• Mu — Mustard
• Sul — Sulphur dioxide and sulphites

Every dish on our Menu is marked with the codes that apply to it. If a dish doesn’t carry a code from the list above, that allergen isn’t an intentional ingredient. Read on, though — Section 5 covers the bit about a small kitchen.

4. A note on lupin

Lupin is the 14th statutory allergen. It’s a legume, often used as flour or in vegan meat substitutes — exactly the kind of place plant-based kitchens sometimes lean on it.

We don’t. Lupin isn’t on any current recipe, isn’t in any supplier we use, and isn’t stored on the premises. If you have a lupin allergy, you’re safe with us across the entire menu, currently and as long as it stays that way — if we ever change that, we’ll update this page first, before any lupin enters the kitchen.

5. Cross-contamination — being honest about a small kitchen

Our kitchen is small. Pasta gets boiled in the same water that boiled noodles an hour earlier. The chopping board that handled celery this morning is the same board after a wash. The same pan fries the dish with peanut oil and the dish with sunflower oil — just at different times.

For most people, that’s fine. For people with allergies, it depends on the severity:

• Mild allergy or intolerance. Probably fine. Our codes will steer you to dishes without the allergen as an intentional ingredient.
• Moderate allergy. Tell us before ordering. We’ll take extra care — fresh pan, freshly-cleaned utensils, separate prep surface where feasible.
• Severe allergy — anaphylaxis-level. Please call us before ordering, ideally during a quiet hour (3–6 pm or after 9 pm). We’ll talk you through which dishes carry the lowest cross-contact risk, what we can do to lower it further, and — honestly — whether you’d be safer eating elsewhere this time. We’d rather lose your booking than risk your life. None of this is about turning you away — it’s about getting it right.

What we can’t promise: zero cross-contact. A small kitchen with shared equipment can’t guarantee it, and we won’t pretend otherwise. This isn’t legal cover — it’s because we actually want to keep you safe.

6. How to tell us — three channels

The single most important thing you can do is tell us before you order, not during or after.

• Dine-in. Tell your server when you order. For a severe allergy, call ahead earlier in the day so the kitchen has time to plan.
• Phone reservations. Mention it when you book. We’ll note it on the reservation so the kitchen sees it before service starts.
• Delivery. Use the order notes field — there’s no server to ask in person. Be specific: “severe peanut allergy, including cross-contact” is better than “no peanuts please.”

For severe allergies, we’d rather hear from you twice than not at all. There’s no such thing as too much information when it comes to keeping you safe.

7. Special diets vs allergens — different things

Customers (and sometimes restaurants) mix these up. They aren’t the same and we don’t treat them the same.

• Allergens are an immune-system reaction. They can be life-threatening. Declaring them accurately is a legal obligation under UK food law, and we take responsibility for getting it right.
• Intolerances (like lactose, though that one’s irrelevant here) are digestive — uncomfortable, not dangerous. Tell us anyway and we’ll do our best.
• Diet preferences — vegan (everyone here, by definition), halal, kosher, low-FODMAP, gluten-free-by-choice — are personal choices we’ll happily work around. We’re best-effort on these, not certified.

If you tell us “I’m allergic to X,” we treat X as an allergen — full safety protocol. If you tell us “I prefer to avoid X,” we treat it as a preference. If it’s actually a severe allergy, please use the word “allergy” so we don’t accidentally downgrade it.

8. What we can promise — and what we can’t

We can:

• Provide accurate per-dish allergen information (the codes on the Menu, updated whenever a recipe changes).
• Train every member of staff to read the codes and answer your questions about ingredients.
• Take extra care for severe allergies — dedicated utensils, freshly-cleaned surfaces, recook from scratch if asked, where it’s feasible.
• Update this page and the Menu before any new ingredient enters the kitchen.

We can’t:

• Guarantee zero cross-contact in a shared kitchen.
• Handle anaphylaxis on the premises — call 999 first, then us. Our role at that point is to get help to you, not replace it.
• Silently change recipes. If a dish gains or loses an allergen, the Menu and this page change first.

9. The legal basics

If you’re keeping score, here’s what stands behind everything above:

• Regulation (EU) 1169/2011 on Food Information to Consumers (retained in UK law post-Brexit), Article 9 and Annex II — defines the 14 statutory allergens.
• Food Information Regulations 2014 — the UK implementation; requires written allergen information for non-prepacked food.
• Natasha’s Law (Food Information (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2019, in force since 1 October 2021) — adds the full ingredient list and emphasised-allergen labelling requirement for PPDS (Pre-Packed for Direct Sale) items. We don’t currently sell PPDS items — every dine-in dish is plated to order, every delivery order is packed in response to that specific order. If we ever introduce grab-and-go pre-packed items (sandwich shelves, salad pots), this page will be updated to cover Natasha’s Law’s full labelling rules before any such item goes on sale.
• Food Safety Act 1990, section 14 — selling food not of the nature, substance, or quality demanded is a criminal offence, allergen mislabelling included. We take that as seriously as it sounds.

10. Contact and your rights

For anything to do with allergens — a question, a recipe check, a heads-up about an upcoming visit with a severe allergy — email hello@plantylondon.com or call +44 7896 278832.

How we handle the allergen information you share with us (it’s a “special category” of personal data under UK GDPR, and we treat it accordingly) is covered in Privacy Policy Section 14.

Nothing on this page reduces your statutory rights as a consumer. If we’ve written something here that contradicts those rights, the law wins — automatically.