What Menu Decoder actually does
One profile, four ways to scan a menu, and ingredient lists that never overclaim. Here's the full catalog.
Scan & ingredients
Photo, upload, paste, or link
Snap a menu photo, upload one from your album, paste menu text, or drop in a link — including QR-code menus and restaurant websites (HTML or PDF).
Dish-by-dish ingredients
Every recognized dish shows its typical ingredients, with an orange ▲ on the ones that are common major allergens — the same marks for every reader, nothing judged for you.
Hidden-ingredient knowledge base
A curated dish database catches what a dish's name doesn't say — satay's peanut sauce, hollandaise's egg and dairy, red curry's shrimp paste.
Verified vs. unverified
Curated ingredient lists are human-reviewed. AI additions appear only above a strict confidence threshold and can only add information — never remove it.
Unknown is loud, never silent
When we don't have ingredient information for a dish, it says so explicitly and points you to the staff — a missing list never reads as an all-clear.
Ask-staff questions
Your standing questions — built from your own selected allergen types, translated, valid for any dish — sit right above the menu, and you can check them off as you ask.
Diet programs
Ten programs, scored separately
Keto, low-carb, paleo, Whole30, Mediterranean, DASH, carnivore, high-protein, low-fat, and calorie-conscious — scored on their own fit scale, never the safety colors or words.
Top picks for your plan
The best-fitting dishes, ranked automatically — pulled only from dishes with nothing flagged. Multiple programs combine, so a pick has to fit all of them.
Pick a subset per scan
The Today bar lets you choose which of your saved programs apply to this one scan, without touching your saved profile.
Chef cards & 19 languages
Chef card, built from your profile
Your saved allergies and avoid list turn into a large-type card the kitchen can read at a glance — nothing new to fill in.
Country picker
Tell it where you're dining and it suggests the right language automatically, or pick a language yourself from the full list.
19 app languages
The entire app interface — not only the chef card — is available in 19 languages, switchable anytime from Settings.
Recipes & saved
Typical recipes
Look up how a flagged dish is usually made — ingredients and steps — to understand exactly why it was flagged and what a kitchen would need to change.
Saved cards & recipes
Save a menu's summary card or an individual recipe, filed under Saved with filters for All, Cards, and Recipes.
Stays on your device
Everything you save lives on your device, ready the next time you're back at the same table.
Speed & honesty
Instant results, then a double-check
You get a deterministic answer from the knowledge base first, in seconds — an AI double-check refines it quietly in the background and can only add caution, never take one away.
Built to a 3-5 second budget
Every tap responds within about a second, with a full answer inside three to five seconds — nobody should wait on a model with a table full of people.
The honesty vocabulary
The whole product is built around never overclaiming. Here is exactly what the marks mean — and what they don’t.
Marks, not verdicts
Menu Decoder never judges a dish for you and never tells you one is free of risk. It shows what’s typically inside, marks the common allergens, and hands you the right questions.
The orange ▲
Marks an ingredient that is a common major allergen — peanut, fish, milk, gluten, and the rest. The marks are generic: the same for every reader, never a judgment about you or the dish.
Unmarked ingredients
Not a complete list, and not an all-clear — unmarked ingredients can still cause reactions. The legend above every list says exactly this, every time.
No ingredient information
When we don’t know a dish, we say so explicitly and point you to the staff. A blank is never allowed to look like an answer.
Your questions
Built from your own selected allergen types and translated into the kitchen’s language — valid for any dish, because the kitchen is the only one who truly knows what’s in the pan.
Verified and unverified mean different things — say so, every time
A verified flag comes from our hand-curated, human-reviewed database. An unverified flag comes from an AI reading the menu text, shown only above a strict confidence threshold, and only ever allowed to add a caution — never to remove or downgrade a verified one. You always know which kind you're looking at.
Every result carries this line, and always will:
"Menus change and kitchens share equipment. Always confirm with staff. This app does not provide medical advice."