Allergy Eating in Sydney

Establishment: Feast at Sheraton Grand Sydney Hyde Park  Cuisine: Hotel buffet restaurant  Allergy information: Dishes that are gluten free or contain dairy are marked, seafood is abundant  Suggestions: Speak to the chef and they will consult with you about your needs and assist you with your food Now this will easily be one of the swankier entries on this page, and something of a treat our family has a couple of times a year on special occasions because The International Seafood Buffet has quite recently become a favourite with my parents and their fellow retiree friends (senior discounts are pretty amazing!).  Lately, this has meant that when my dad's birthday rolls around each Australia Day, we usually find ourselves making our way to the grand entrance of the Sheraton Grand Sydney Hyde Park so that the family can dig into the wide array of seafood on offer.  Like this! Of course, this also means that I, someone who is highly allergic to seafood, also

Wonderful surprise discoveries while travelling with allergies! Find #1 - Apfelkern Und Kolibri , Bad Homburg, Germany It's been a long few years since my excellent friend, Colleen, and I finally found this place after getting lost amidst the picturesque maze of houses, just off of Bad Homburg's main shopping street, Louisenstraße. She had looked up whether this beautiful city had any allergy-safe dining fare for my visit and found this quaint looking cafe offering a fully vegan menu.  Thankfully, we eventually found the place (it took a while, Google maps being particularly unhelpful!) and it was easily one of the cutest places I'd ever eaten. The entire menu was vegan, saving me from fear of dairy, egg or seafood, and a quick and very kindly answered query about their Mediterranean Quiche determined that they could create the dish without adding the pine nuts so that covered that final obstacle.  To this day, I am chagrined that I never took a photo of th

Establishment: New Shanghai, Sydney CBD, Ashfield, Chatswood Cuisine: modern Shanghai-style cuisine Allergy information: a number of dishes are entirely dairy, egg, seafood and nut free Suggestions: pan fried pork buns, pork and chive dumplings, spinach with garlic – all those together make for a pretty great meal (and for a pretty decent price)! When you’re allergic to seafood and fish sauce, eating at a lot of Asian places can often be quite difficult. Growing up, it was always safest for me to have a plain bowl of rice because there was either fish sauce or oyster sauce in just about everything and they could never guarantee my dish would be safely free of any seafood. Thankfully, growing up Filo, I like my rice so with the promise of a trip to Maccas once the family or the friends were done with Yum Cha, I would happily dip through my bowl, improve on my chopstick skills and enjoy the company. What this meant though, was that for the majority of my life, I was one of

Establishment: The Bavarian, various locations Cuisine: German restaurant Allergy information: A range of options are dairy, egg, seafood, nut, soy, sesame and gluten free. A build your own salad or wrap option also means you can select safe ingredients from a large selection of leaves, proteins, vegies and more Suggestions: the crackling pork belly, with chips instead of mash, and some extra sauerkraut for a well-filled belly A sample of the kind of meaty fare you can expect at The Bavarian Over the years, I've been lucky enough to build up a nice list of places where I can reliably eat without worry and The Bavarian holds a happy place on it as one of its earliest entrants. I was introduced to the place by my friends years back. On my first visit, I stuck to chips to be safe (after quickly checking they weren't cooked with any seafood) as was pretty much my way whenever I went anywhere new. See, at this point, I was in my mid-twenties and I hadn't really bra

Establishment: Gourmet Cake Express Cuisine: Baked goods Allergy information: They have a wide range of gluten free cakes as well as a selection for special diets such as egg free, dairy free and vegan. Suggestions: The Egg Free Dairy Free Chocolate Cake is moist, jammy and decadent. They have also confirmed it is nut free so that's one for the nut allergies! Straight off the bat, I will not hesitate to say I've been going to these guys for cake since 2012 and once again, I have an excellent workmate to thank for their discovery. In the lead up to one of our team meetings, my workmate, Jaz, sent me an email letting me know that they were looking to get some cake in for my and another teammate's upcoming birthdays (incidentally, my 30th!) and asked me to check out a link to a place called Gourmet Cake Express that had a 'Special Diets' section. If I recall correctly (2012 was a while back now), I clicked the link in disbelief and had a minor freak out befor

Vale! To those allergy-friendly places that are no longer with us. Post #1 -  WellCo Cafe, Glebe A tribute to the place that served me my first allergy-safe brownie, along with one of the tastiest vegan green salads I've ever had and that became one of my favourite haunts till it had to go - Well Co cafe on Glebe Point Road 🙌 This place was a gem. Sure, it wasn't perfect or polished or slick. The tables and chairs were worn and the interior could be dark and pokey but what did it matter when you and your friends were huddled around a table having a good gab or listening to the jazz bands that used to play by the stairs? Simple, it just didn't. Friends and I could sit there, chatting and nursing our sweet treats and tea for hours. If we ended up on the balcony upstairs, our sojourn was accompanied by a good breeze (if there was one) along with the buzz of traffic down on Glebe Point Road. It was a place you could really sit back and relax in. Of course, t

Establishment: RaRa Redfern, Redfern Cuisine: Ramen bar Allergy information: they offer a ramen that is entirely dairy, egg, seafood and nut free but contains soy Suggestions: edamame and vegan soy shio for a lovely full meal I have to admit, I have never known that much about Ramen aside from the fact that it involved noodles. Being Asian, I know people sing its praises, though after a history of difficulty eating at Japanese establishments, with allergies to seafood and egg, I have become quite accustomed to tuning out a little when the topic comes up. Even now, when I end up at Japanese places, I'm still more wont to just munch on some edamame and enjoy the company. Thus far, the ignorance has been blissful enough, but it sure got turned on its head this weekend. Not that long ago, a good friend of mine casually mentioned that they had vegan ramen at RaRa Redfern  near where she and her family live and sent me a photo of the item on their menu - Vegan Soy Shio. Having

Establishment: Gathered Kitchen, Glebe Cuisine: plant based, vegan, cafe Allergy information: all dishes are dairy and egg free, some dishes are also nut free or gluten free Suggestions: the pancake stack and the pain au chocolat – delicieux! Living with allergies, suggestions from family and friends have become a great way to discover new foods or places to eat out, especially in the last decade or so. Don’t get me wrong, Google is a pretty handy way to find articles and sites that guide you to some amazingly allergy friendly finds, but when you have people on your side, looking out for you and thinking about you when they see something delicious that won’t have you running for your epipen or to the hospital, that’s a pretty wonderful thing. In this case, I have to thank my workmate, Morgaine, for suggesting I check out this relatively new place in Glebe. Being vego, she had started frequenting a vegan cafe called Gathered Kitchen and one day at work, she made a passing sugges

Photo clearly not taken at this time of year in Sydney. Phew!            Hello! So my name's Jel and after over 36-odd years of managing food allergies whilst living in Sydney and after years of trying, testing, trawling through sites, blogs, videos and all else on the internet, it’s pretty safe to say that I’m not alone in my neverending quest to find safe things to eat. There are so many of us out there who have spent our lives navigating ways to eat out with as little complication as possible and for many of us, that meant a lot of awkward conversations and explanations with people and wait staff about what you could and couldn't eat and then often having to deal with very visible exasperation and confusion. Of course, some were kind and did try, but ultimately, after enough years of embarrassment and anxiety, it became much simpler to just stop trying which then meant restrictions on the types of places you could go with friends and family, effectively limitin

My answer to the food allergies - ha! My Christmas baking supplies. My Allergy Profile Food allergies: Dairy Egg Seafood Most nuts  - thankfully, early exposure to peanuts, almonds and cashews helped me to escape a very common food allergy but the rest are a no go zone Rockmelon* Kiwi* Sausage - this is on here because sausage has sent me to the hospital however lately I have been closely checking ingredients and finding some that have turned out to be safe, which is amazing! Alcohol* All cause anaphylaxis and hives except the ones marked which have caused itching, swelling and vomiting. Other allergies: Animal fur (particularly cats, dogs and horses) Sensitivities: Dust mites Heat, both humid and dry UV Conditions: Eczema/atopic dermatitis Perioral dermatitis Asthma (mild) Ulcerative Colitis (pancolitis/mild) Current medications: Zyrtec (1 daily or more as needed) Imuran (75mg daily) - started having to take this after an unhappy bout wi

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