Hello, I’m just back from a 10-day trip to Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka. I got a lot of great advice here so I thought I’d share my experience and tips re travelling with a nut allergy.
Situation: My husband is allergic to peanuts only, but avoids all nuts in case they are mixed/contaminated. Before we left he bought a card to print up and self-laminate that stated (in Japanese, obviously) that he was allergic to all nuts. We showed this card in restaurants and to the concierge whenever we made a reservation. He also learned how to say “I am allergic to peanuts” and in Japanese.
General takeaway: If you avoid street food, you can feel quite safe with a peanut allergy in Japan, first of all because peanuts aren’t super-standard in the food, but also because the staff in most restaurants are very conscientious and will go right to the chef to find out if the food is safe.
Tips:
\*If he could do it again, he would just print up a peanut allergy card rather than an all nuts card, because the “all nuts” seemed to confuse people and we felt we were turned away from more places than we would have been otherwise. Many people asked us about sesame and/or soya nuts after they read the card. Simpler would be better.
\*Ask about your allergy BEFORE you get in line at a restaurant. We found this out the hard way after waiting 90 minutes once and 30 minutes another time before being turned away (slow learners).
\*We did a (great!) Ramen tour with Tokyo Ramen Tours; beforehand, we were assured that most ramen is nut-free and they double-checked wherever we went. There’s a specific type of ramen that can include peanuts – it’s called “tantanmen” (a ramen derived from Chinese dan dan noodles). Avoid this, obviously. None of the many ramen restaurants we visited after that tour had peanuts or turned us away.
\*Skip any Conveyer Belt Sushi restaurant or buffet restaurant. We were turned away from a conveyer belt resto on our first day and it makes sense given the range of food passing in front of you. Same issue with buffets. We avoided the (drool-worthy) department store takeaways for the same reason.
\*We were also turned away from a famous Udon restaurant (Dontonbori Imai Honten) and a non-descript sushi restaurant in the busy Dontonbori tourist area of Osaka. We ate Udon and sushi elsewhere so it was particular to these restaurants.
\*Yakiniku restaurants where you grill your own meat MAY be okay but the one we went to in Ginza said they did have peanuts as garnish and maybe in some sauces. They gave us meat with salt only and no sauce (it was still fantastic), and since you use your own grill we didn’t worry about cross-contamination.
\*We worried some Tempura might be cooked in peanut oil, but the fancy places use cottonseed oil and the others use vegetable oils like canola. I’d still ask, but we had zero problems.
\*My husband avoids sweets, baked goods or ice cream so we had no experience asking about those; obviously if you are travelling with kids you will want to check that out!
\*We looked up the ingredients for 551 Horai’s famous pork buns, and they did not contain nuts. I ate them and would say they were nut-free, but my husband ended up not trying them.
\*Bars (especially those with cover charges) often brought out little bowls of snacks, sometimes including nuts. We just waved them away if they had visible nuts, and if no nuts were apparent, we left it on the table (or I ate it), but he didn’t risk it.
\*We used Google Translate’s photo feature to scan menus and look up ingredients on packaged food. We also used an app (Payke) that lets you scan a barcode and see translated product descriptions.
\*No one gave us a hard time or acted like it was a pain to check with the kitchen. Often they would go to great lengths to be sure (sometimes it took a bit of time), which we really appreciated. One place (Katsukura Shinjuku Takashimaya) had a big book of recipes/allergens to refer to, but even then they still asked the kitchen. In the rare cases where they said they couldn’t serve us, they were very apologetic and nice.
I hope this is helpful — my main conclusion is that a peanut allergy shouldn’t prevent you from visiting Japan. We ate a TON of food of every popular Japanese style in a wide range of restaurants, and we felt safer than in some U.S. or Canadian cities where cooking with peanuts is way more common. We had a fantastic trip and I hope you do too!
15 comments
Most packaged food has allergy information in a separate box and a number of chain restaurants have allergy information on their site, but you’ll probably have to be able to read Japanese.
My recollection on reading a lot of allergy information text is that peanuts doesn’t show up much.
Source: was there last week and I’m allergic to eggs.
I’m headed to Japan in November and I’m also allergic to all Nutz. I hadn’t thought about it because I’m an idiot.
Thank you very much for the insight, you probably saved me from a bad day there!
Pretty good synopsis on this subject. Glad you guys had a good time.
If I could give any advice to people in Japan it’s don’t wait in queues beyond 20 mins. The quality of food is phenomenal everywhere, just because it’s great for instagram or TikTok doesn’t doesn’t mean it’s worth wasting quality time on holiday.
As a DP: I noticed Coco Ichibanya (the curry restaurant chain) puts peanut butter in the curry sauce.
I’m planning on traveling alone to Japan in the near future and I’m allergic to 40% of nuts but I’m just going to not touch any of them.when I’m there. Thanks for this post! I found it super helpful I did something similar with laminated cards in Thailand and avoided a serious reaction (had a minor one) and inwas there for 2 months.
I live in Japan with my family. We don’t speak any Japanese. My daughter is anaphylaxis to all tree nuts. She carries a note in Kanji explaining her allergy. She’ll show that to our waitress when we go out to eat. The locals are always very patient, and I always thank them. I’ll look up the restaurant’s allergy information online if it’s available. She also carries an EpiPen. If we’re grabbing something from 7-11 I’ll read the back using Google translate. I can PM the note to anyone if they’re interested.
Could you share what you card looked like? Going soon and have a peanut allergy.
For those who need some words:
落花生 (Rakkasei)
ピーナッツ (Piinatsu)
The first is much more common and much more likely to be seen on allergy information
この人は落花生にアレルギーがあります
This person has a peanut allergy.
I went to Japan in February, and brought an allergy card with me. I definitely regret not getting the courage to ask (I only really went to a Korean BBQ place in Kabukicho and a gluten free restaurant, the rest was conbini stuff). I was travelling alone so it definitely put a bit more pressure on me when looking for somewhere to eat alone.
However, this definitely got my hopes up for next time! I also made the mistake of sitting / standing around and looking for reviews and recommendations online and Google Maps, which I spent too much time doing. And like you’ve done, asking in person is the only real way you’re going to get an answer.
And yes, I’m also allergic to peanuts, but tree nuts as well. I was recently cleared for sesame, so that should open up way more options as well.
This is super helpful, thanks! My significant other has a severe nut allergy (everything but almonds) and we’re planning to go later this year, so this is being added to our reference lists!
This is really helpful, thank you! I’m going soon and have been sort of worried about my peanut allergy, this does help assuage my fears a bit, especially about fry oil as I see a lot of conflicting information on the internet.
Thank you this is super helpfull.
My Oldest son (10) have an hazlenut and Walnut allergy and I really want to travel with im to Japan sometimes if mommy will allow it maybe…
Thanks
I recommend a medicaid band/bracelet, on the off chance you become unconscious it would at least tell medical professionals what you are allergic to. Even if you’re travelling with someone, they might not be able to communicate your conditions or go with you to the hospital.
That said, I’m allergic to all nuts and I was wayyy more casual with my approach to food in Japan. Generally speaking I love all traditional food in which nuts are uncommon because they’re imported and it’s culturally unusual to include them. I wasn’t really worried eating ramen, izakaya or sushi and didn’t even bother asking in many cases.
I was far more wary of any type of bakery or pastry shop, crepes, parfaits as all of them often use Nutella or almonds. Very sad about that because the pastries looked fucking awesome. There’s a lot more nut usage here because these are western dishes.
I would also be very wary of packaged foods and snacks. Nut flavors and powered nuts can be common there too.
I’ve noticed an annoying trend of fried chicken being battered with breading that has nuts recently. I think that’s more of a Korean thing but I might have to start keeping a closer eye on anything deep fried breaded.
In a burger place in Tokyo once I asked for no bacon on my burger, then wondered why my burger was 15mins later than everyone else’s in my group.
It was because they cleaned the entire grill so there would be no trace of bacon on my meal.
I just don’t eat pork because I don’t like it, but the fact that they took it so seriously was amazing and should give anyone with dietary restrictions confidence in eating in Japan.