Allergens

The short version

Our kitchens handle all nine major food allergens every single service, in rooms small enough that one cook may work two stations in an evening. We will change a dish, cook you a different one, or write you a separate menu. What we will not do is tell you that a dish is free from traces of an allergen, because in a kitchen this size that would not be true.

If your allergy is severe or anaphylactic, please tell us when you book, tell us again when you sit down, and read the cross contact section below carefully before you decide whether to eat with us. We would far rather you chose not to than have you take a risk on our behalf.

What the tags on our menus mean

Four tags appear on the food and drink menus. They describe a dish as written, before any modification, and they are about ingredients rather than about the kitchen environment.

The nine allergens we handle daily

United States labelling law identifies nine major allergens. All nine are present in our kitchens every day. This is what each one is used for here, so you can judge the risk yourself rather than take our word for it.

• Milk. Cultured butter on almost every savoury station, cheese course, ice creams, custards, brioche.
• Eggs. Pastry, cured yolks, sabayon, soufflé, egg white in one cocktail.
• Fish. A whole fish is broken down on the garde manger bench most mornings. Fish is also in the garum crocks and in the ponzu.
• Shellfish and crustaceans. Oysters, scallops, lobster, brown crab butter. Shellfish stock is made in the same stock pots as other stocks on different days.
• Tree nuts. Hazelnut, walnut, almond and pistachio in pastry, in two garden dishes and on the cheese course.
• Peanuts. Not used in any dish on our menus. Peanut oil is not used anywhere in any kitchen. However our suppliers cannot guarantee their facilities are peanut free, so we do not claim a peanut free kitchen.
• Wheat. Bread baked daily on site, pastry, brioche, crackers, flour dredging.
• Soybeans. Soy in ponzu and in some ferments. Soy lecithin appears in chocolate.
• Sesame. Black sesame in the soufflé and the praline, sesame oil on the charred cabbage.

We also use mustard, celery, sulphites and lupin free flours, none of which are required to be declared under federal law but all of which matter to some guests. Ask and we will tell you exactly where they are.

Cross contact: what we cannot promise

Our kitchens are between 380 and 520 square feet. They have shared extraction, shared water, shared plating benches and, at busy moments, shared hands. We take real precautions: separate boards and knives for allergen work, a dedicated station and dedicated pans for the vegan menu, fresh gloves, and allergen orders called and plated before the rest of a table. Even so, airborne flour from the bread bench and trace protein on a cloth are realistic risks that no procedure in a room this size fully eliminates.

We therefore cannot guarantee that any dish is free from traces of any allergen, and we cannot describe our kitchens as free from any allergen. This applies equally to the tasting menus, the à la carte list, the bar list, Noir at Home orders and anything you buy from the Pantry.

How to tell us

• Write it on the reservation form. That is what the dietary field is for and it goes straight to the kitchen the morning of your booking.
• Say it again when you sit down. Servers ask every table, and we would rather hear it twice than miss it once.
• Give us twenty four hours where you can. With notice we can cook you something designed to be delicious. Without notice we can usually only subtract, and a plate with a component removed is a worse dinner.
• For Noir at Home orders, use the allergy field on the order form. Every box is labelled with its allergens on the lid.

Nutrition information

We do not publish calorie counts or macronutrient breakdowns, and here is the honest reason: the menu is written every morning and cooked once, so any number we printed would be an estimate of a dish that no longer exists. Federal menu labelling rules apply to chains of twenty or more locations. We operate three, so the requirement does not apply to us, and we would rather say that plainly than publish figures we could not stand behind.

What we will do, on request and in person, is tell you exactly what is in a dish: every ingredient, how it was cooked, and what fat it was cooked in. If you are counting something specific for medical reasons, call the location before you come and we will walk through the likely menu with you.

Nothing on this site is medical or dietary advice. If you have a diagnosed condition, follow the guidance of your own clinician rather than a restaurant website.

Alcohol

Wines may contain sulphites and may have been fined with egg white, milk protein or isinglass. Priya Raghunathan keeps a list of the vegan bottles in each cellar and it is genuinely up to date. Ask for it.

Questions

Call the location you plan to visit and ask to speak to the chef on duty, which is always better than email for something this important. The numbers are on the locations page. For anything less urgent, write to [email protected].