Your Dishes: ingredients, allergens and diets

In short: The Dish tool is where you build your dishes. Now each dish can include its ingredients, allergens and diets (like vegetarian or vegan). The AI can fill this in for you, and you review it. Well-maintained dishes result in cleaner menus and more accurate proposals for your clients, especially if you use Smart Proposal.

Why this matters to you

Before, a dish was only a name and a category. Now your dishes carry real information: what's in them, which allergens they have, and which diets they fit. This helps you:

Keep your dish list clean and easy to search.
Show clients clear, accurate menus.
Get more accurate automatic proposals if you are a Pro chef with Smart Proposal.

How to create a dish (step by step)

Select Add dish.
Enter the dish name and choose a category (Starter, First course, Main course, Dessert).
Select Auto-generate ingredients, diets & allergens. The AI fills in the dish for you.
Review what the AI suggests. You can add or remove ingredients, and turn allergens and diets on or off.
Select Save.

If the AI is unable to generate the information for any reason, a blank form will appear so you can enter everything manually.

Fixing an allergen on a dish that's already in a menu

If you notice the allergens are incorrect for a dish you already use in a menu, do not fix them from the menu. Fix them on the dish:

Go to your Dish Library and open that dish.
Correct the allergens (turn them on or off) and save.
The corrected allergens now apply to that dish everywhere it is used.

If an existing menu does not show the update immediately, open that menu and save it again to refresh it.

The AI helps, but you decide

The AI reads your dish and suggests the ingredients, allergens and diets. It is there to save you time, not to replace your expertise. You will always see a reminder to check the information before saving, because accurate allergen information is essential for your client's safety.

You can always:

Add or remove ingredients.
Turn allergens on or off.
Turn diets (like vegetarian or vegan) on or off.

Ingredients

When you add ingredients, you search from a shared list. Start typing and you'll see matches.

If your ingredient is not listed, you will see the option to add it. That ingredient is added to this dish only; it is not saved to the shared list for next time.

Every dish requires at least one ingredient to be saved. If you change the ingredients later, remember to check the allergens and diets again, since they depend on what is in the dish.

Allergens

The platform uses one official set of allergens (gluten, dairy, nuts, egg, fish, soy, sesame, mustard, celery, sulphites, lupin, molluscs, crustaceans and the rest of the official list).

You can turn any of these on or off, but you cannot add an allergen that is not on the list.

Diets

The AI also suggests which diets your dish fits, such as vegetarian or vegan, based on the ingredients. You can adjust these too.

Other preferences a client might have (like halal, kosher or keto) don't need to be tagged dish by dish. If you use Smart Proposal, the system reads those from the client's request and adapts the menu for you.

Similar dishes

If you try to create a dish that is very similar to one you already have, the tool will display a warning to prevent duplicates. You can proceed with creating it, or edit the existing dish instead.

Your existing dishes are also being organised and tagged automatically in the background. If some still appear without information, open them and use Auto-generate to complete them.

Deleting a dish

To protect your menus, you cannot delete a dish that is still used in a menu. Remove it from the menu first, then delete it. You will also be asked to confirm twice before it is removed.

Dishes in your menus and proposals

When you add a dish to a menu, you will see its allergens and intolerances in red and its diets in green.
Inside a menu, the allergens and diets come straight from the dish. To change them, edit the dish, and the change shows up everywhere that dish is used.
You can create a new dish right from the menu tool with Create new dish, it saves to your dish list like normal.
When you send a proposal, you can add a dish that is not in your list by typing it in. It can be sent, but it will not show any allergens or diets (because it did not go through the tool), and it will not be saved to your list.

If you are a Pro chef with Smart Proposal

Smart Proposal can automatically send a menu proposal to a client on your behalf. It uses the information on your dishes to do this accurately. It can:

Leave out dishes that do not fit the client's allergens or diets.
Swap an ingredient or replace a dish with a similar one in the same price range.
Build a menu that respects the client's needs.

You will always see what it did. The proposal appears in your inbox with a ⚡ Smart Proposal label, the menu details, and a summary of the changes it made, along with the client's allergens and diets.

The more complete your dish information is, the more accurately Smart Proposal works, and the safer your proposals are for clients.

Quick answers

The AI generated incorrect information. Can I fix it? Yes. You can change any ingredient, allergen or diet before saving.

My allergen is not on the list. Can I add it? No. You can only use allergens from the official list.

I added a new ingredient. Is it saved for next time? No, it is added to that dish only.

Do I need an ingredient to save a dish? Yes, at least one.

Why can I not edit allergens inside a menu? Because they come from the dish. Edit them on the dish and the menu updates automatically.

I cannot delete my dish — it says it is in a menu. Remove it from the menu first, then delete it.

Why does my dish not show allergens in a proposal? If you typed it in as a new dish during the proposal, it did not go through the tool, so it has no allergen or diet information.

Can I use symbols like @ or # in the dish name? No, dish names can't contain special characters like @ or #.

The AI is taking a long time or will not generate. If it does not work, fill in the dish manually and try Auto-generate again later.

Will the AI tag my existing dishes too? Yes, they are being tagged in the background. If any are still empty, open them and use Auto-generate.