Point your camera at a menu. See what’s in every dish — and know what to ask.

Menu Decoder shows each dish’s typical ingredients with common allergens marked — in 19 languages — and hands you the right questions to ask, in the kitchen’s language. When it doesn’t know a dish, it says so.

Free to try. Works from a photo, pasted text, or a menu link. No account required.

Illustration of the app: a scanned menu where each dish lists its typical ingredients, with orange triangles marking common allergens and one dish showing an explicit no-information note.

The house rule

Why we never say "safe"

This is the most important idea behind Menu Decoder. Read it before you trust a single ingredient list.

Marks, not verdicts — the whole vocabulary

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.

The word "safe" never appears in this app — on purpose

A menu description can't show you what's in the fryer oil, whether the kitchen shares equipment, or what the kitchen quietly substitutes. Calling anything "safe" would be a promise we can't back up, from a photo of a menu, every time.

So instead of a false all-clear, Menu Decoder tells you exactly what it did and didn't find, how confident it is, and what's still worth asking your server. Overflagging is annoying; a missed allergen is dangerous — so when we're not sure, we say so, loudly, instead of guessing quietly.

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."

Scan four ways

Photo, upload, paste, or a link — whatever's fastest at the table

Snap a photo of a printed menu, upload one from your photo album, paste text copied from a restaurant's site, or drop in a menu link — including QR-code menus. All four run through the same profile and the same verdict engine.

Photo
printed menus — best results with a clear, straight-on shot
Upload
a menu photo already in your album
Paste text
fastest when the menu's already on a website
Menu link
restaurant sites and QR-code menus
Also new

Not just what to avoid — what fits your diet

Pick the diet programs you follow — keto, Mediterranean, DASH, paleo, Whole30, low-carb, and more — and Menu Decoder scores every dish against them too, right alongside your safety flags, never instead of them. Top picks are always pulled from dishes with nothing flagged; a diet-program pick can never override an allergy or safety flag.

Keto Mediterranean DASH …and more

Seared Scallops, beurre blanc

★ Great fit
Also new

Say it to the kitchen, in their language

Generate a chef card from your saved allergies and avoid list — in any of 19 languages — and hand it straight to your server or the kitchen. Built from the same profile as your safety flags, nothing new to fill in, and legible across the table: large type, a plain "cannot eat" list. These three cards use real translated strings from Menu Decoder's own language files.

日本語 · Japanese

食物アレルギーカード

私の料理には、次のものを絶対に入れないでください:

  • ピーナッツ(落花生)
  • エビ・カニ・ロブスター

材料と調理方法をご確認ください。

Română · Romanian

Card de alergii alimentare

Mâncarea mea NU trebuie să conțină:

  • lapte / lactate
  • gluten (grâu, orz, secară)

Vă rog să verificați ingredientele.

ไทย · Thai

บัตรแพ้อาหาร

อาหารของฉันต้องไม่มีส่วนผสมของ:

  • ปลา (รวมถึงน้ำปลา)
  • งา (รวมถึงทาฮินี)

กรุณาตรวจสอบส่วนผสม

Per dish

Ask the waiter — with the exact questions ready

Your standing questions — built from your own selected allergen types and translated into the menu's language — sit above every scanned menu. Tap one once you've asked it, and it gets a line through it, so you can track the table's conversation as it happens.

Red Curry

Is the curry paste made with shrimp paste? Is this fried in the same oil as the shellfish dishes?
Understand the "why"

Typical recipes, and a saved gallery to remember what worked

Look up how a flagged dish is usually made — ingredients and steps — to see exactly why it was flagged and what a kitchen would need to leave out. Save a menu's summary card or a recipe you looked up; everything you save stays on your device, filed under Saved, ready the next time you're back at the same table.

CardMaison Lumière
RecipeHollandaise
CardBangkok Kitchen
RecipePad Thai
19 languages
32 country dining map
404 dish knowledge base
Instant results
Try it instantly, no menu of your own required

Maison Lumière

Menu Dégustation — a fictional tasting menu built to show off exactly what Menu Decoder catches: a consommé clarified with egg-white rafts, a hazelnut-oil velouté, a walnut vinaigrette, and a Filet Rossini finished with foie gras and brioche.

Open the demo menu inside the web app to see real verdicts on dishes designed to hide their allergens in plain sight.

Try the demo menu