Updated September 2024
Translated chef cards
In non-English speaking countries it may be difficult to tell the staff at a café or restaurant about your food allergy and ask about the ingredients and preparation methods. The translated Chef Card may help in communicating the foods you must avoid.
When telling the wait staff or chef at a cafe or restaurant about your allergies, hand over your chef card and ask for it to come back with your specially prepared meal.
Phrases for travelling
A few phrases that may be useful for travelling have been translated into different languages. It is not a complete list and we recommend travellers also do their own research about emergency management before travelling.
How to make your Translated Chef Card
Care needs to be taken when making your Chef Card to make sure that it accurately lists each of your allergies.
- Download the chef card template.
- Print the Chef Card, cut it out with scissors and glue or sticky tape the relevant words onto the card.
- Make sure you copy the allergens in the same order on both the English and translated Chef Cards.
- Put a new allergen on each line of the card. If you have more than five allergies we suggest you leave space between the allergens.
- Cut and fold your card in half.
- Tape or glue it together and store in your wallet.
- You can laminate the cards so they last longer.
- Be sure to make several copies in case you forget to get it back from the restaurant.
We strongly recommend that you laminate your Chef Card to make it last longer and to prevent the allergens which you have physically glued (or sticky taped) to the card from falling off or being damaged. If you do not laminate your card, you should regularly check whether any of the allergens have fallen off or been damaged. You should perform this check each time you use the card.
REMEMBER: You cannot tell what ingredients foods contain by looking at them, smelling them or tasting them. When eating out, ALWAYS tell people preparing and serving food you have a food allergy. ASK about food content after you have told them about your food allergy.
Allergy & Anaphylaxis Australia takes no responsibility for the assembly of the card by you and, to the maximum extent permitted by law, disclaims any liability for this.
Funding for the Chef Card Translations project has been provided by the Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy (ASCIA), the National Allergy Strategy and an unrestricted education grant from Abbott Nutrition.
Nuts for Life provided an education grant to translate the tree nuts into the various languages.
As the A&AA translated chef cards do not cover all languages, the following website may be of use with translated food allergen cards for other languages: www.selectwisely.com. Please note this is not an endorsement by A&AA of this website.