Allergens on your menu: what Spanish law requires of bars and restaurants

If you run a bar, a café or a restaurant, your guests have the right to know whether what they order contains something that could make them ill. It isn't a courtesy: it is a legal requirement. And it applies to every place that serves food, including those without a big kitchen.

Here we explain what the rules say, what the 14 allergens are, and how to inform guests without losing your mind. This is not legal advice: for your specific case, check with your town council or regional authority, which are the ones that inspect.

Which rules you need to know

Two of them matter here.

• Regulation (EU) 1169/2011 on food information provided to consumers. It is European and applies in the same way across Spain. Annex II sets out the list of substances that cause allergies or intolerances and must be declared.
• Royal Decree 126/2015, which adapts that rule to Spain and covers information on food sold unpackaged. This is where your bar comes in: what you serve on a plate is unpackaged food.

The idea behind it is simple: guests must be able to find out, before they order, which allergens each dish contains.

The 14 allergens you must declare

This is the list from Annex II of Regulation 1169/2011:

Notice that not every food you might think of as risky is on it. This is the official list, and it is the one you have to use.

How the information has to be given

In a place serving unpackaged food, allergen information must be available in writing. It can be on the menu, on a sign, in an allergen folder or on a screen, as long as guests can look it up without having to ask for favours.

Royal Decree 126/2015 also allows the information to be given verbally, but with conditions: there must be a written record that is easy to consult, and guests must be told how to get to it, for example with a sign or a line on the menu saying “Ask about our allergens”. Put another way, “I know it all by heart” is not enough on its own. What the waiter says out loud must match what is on record in writing.

Typical mistakes on menus

We see them again and again:

• The allergen folder is out of date. You change a recipe or a supplier and nobody touches the paper.
• Only the “main” allergen icon is shown. One dish can contain three or four.
• Hidden allergens are forgotten. Soy sauce contains gluten and soya; shop-bought stock can contain celery; wine and vinegar, sulphites; batter, egg and gluten.
• Nobody on the floor knows where the information is. If a guest asks and the answer is “let me check”, there is a problem.
• Allergens are mixed up with preferences. “Not spicy” or “vegan” are not allergens; don’t put them under the same marker.
• Specials have no allergens listed. What isn’t on the fixed menu counts too.

How a digital menu helps

A QR digital menu doesn’t change what the law requires, but it saves you work and cuts down on slip-ups.

app.saboria.app

• You tick the 14 allergens on each dish and guests see them as icons on their phone, right next to the dish. This is included on every Saboria plan, the free one too.
• If you change a recipe, you correct the dish once and the menu is up to date straight away. Nothing to reprint.
• The QR on the table is always the same, so the information is accessible without anyone having to ask for it.
• On the Pro plan you can also get an AI allergen suggestion from the ingredients you write, and guests can filter the menu to see only what they can eat.

That suggestion is an aid, not a substitute for your own judgement. Checking remains the establishment’s responsibility. Always read the labels of the products you buy and confirm the allergens before publishing.

A simple routine to stay on track

1. Whenever you change a supplier or a recipe, review the dish’s allergens that same day.
2. Go through the whole menu every three months with whoever cooks.
3. Tell new staff where the information is and how to show it to a guest.
4. Keep the labels of the products you use, in case anything needs checking.
5. Put a visible notice on the menu: “If you have an allergy or intolerance, tell our staff”.

You can see how each dish is marked in Saboria’s features, and the most common questions are in the FAQ. To compare what each plan includes, it is all on the pricing page.

Getting started

Marking the allergens on your whole menu takes an afternoon. If you want to see it with your own dishes, try Saboria free for 14 days, with everything in the Pro plan and no card needed.