Allergen filters on the public menu
The public filter lets a guest select the allergens they must avoid and see only what is left. It is the feature that turns allergen data from a printed footnote into something usable at a table.
What a guest sees
On a menu archive whose menu type carries allergen information, the filter presents every allergen as a selectable tag with its icon and name, above a short instruction:
Click on the tags to hide the dishes that have those allergens.
The guest ticks what they must avoid and selects Filter. The menu reloads showing the dishes that do not carry those allergens.
It hides, it does not search
This is the point that surprises people, and it is the correct behavior for allergens: selecting gluten removes every dish containing gluten. It does not show the gluten dishes.
A dish that remains visible after filtering is a dish that does not declare that allergen — which is why the accuracy of the tagging matters more than the filter itself.
The selection follows the guest
Once applied, the filter stays with the guest as they move around the menu, so a table that has filtered once does not have to filter again on every section. The selection is remembered in their own browser for about a month.
That is covered in Remembered filter preferences.
Where the filter appears
Two settings control it, and both are per menu type:
- Content settings → Allergens — the menu type must be ticked as carrying allergen information. Without that, its items have no allergen data and there is nothing to filter.
- Content settings → Content settings — the Filters toggler for that archive controls whether the category navigation offers the control that opens the filter panel.
A menu can therefore have allergen data and no visible opener, or an opener and no data. Check both when the filter seems missing.
The allergen information panel
Separately from the filter, the menu can offer an Information about allergens panel listing every allergen with its icon, name and description. That is where the library's descriptions are read, and it is what a guest uses to understand what a symbol means.
Beside it sits the Show allergens in dishes switch, which turns the per-dish icons on and off without filtering anything.
Making the filter useful
- Keep the library short. Sixteen tags fit on a phone; forty do not.
- Tag consistently. A filter is only as good as the least carefully tagged section.
- Test the two common cases. Filter by gluten and by dairy after every menu change and read the result as a guest would.
- Do not rely on it alone. Pair it with the disclaimer wording and a floor team that can answer questions.
What the filter does not do
- It does not know about traces or shared equipment beyond what you tagged.
- It does not filter by diet — vegetarian, vegan, halal — unless you have created those as entries in the allergen library.
- It does not apply to a generated PDF. A printed menu shows allergen icons and labels according to the PDF settings, and cannot be filtered.
If the filter behaves oddly
Start with The allergen filter is wrong, which separates a tagging problem from a settings problem in a few checks.