If you’re an allergy parent, I don’t need to tell you how stressful eating out can be. After nearly 6 years managing our eldest’s nut allergy, I feel I can quickly gauge how trustworthy a restaurant is. I’m happy to go with my gut and leave if a request for an allergy folder is met with a blank stare, slight panic and a scramble for a forgotten-about, tatty folder, usually handed over with a comment like “but of course we have nuts in the kitchen”.
So I was pleasantly surprised when we stopped at Worcester Park last week on the long drive down to Devon and the staff at the Orchard Cafe were totally switched on.