A menu is a marketing document, not an ingredient list. It is written to make food sound good, not to keep you safe. Once you know that, you can read one fast and spot the parts worth a question before you order.
The risk hides in the description
The dish name is rarely the problem. The little description under it is. "Seared salmon" is easy. "Seared salmon with a house glaze and a crumble" has two things in it you cannot see. Read the whole line, not just the bold part.
The words that quietly mean "ask first"
Some words show up over and over on the dishes that get people. When you see these, slow down and ask what is in them:
- House sauce, special sauce, secret seasoning
- Marinated, glazed, breaded, crusted, dusted
- Crumble, streusel, pesto, romesco, satay
- "Natural flavors" on anything packaged
None of these are automatically bad. They are just unknowns, and unknowns are the thing to confirm.
Fried usually means shared
If a dish is fried, assume the oil is shared with everything else that gets fried unless the restaurant tells you otherwise. A dedicated fryer is great and worth asking about, but it is the exception, not the default. This one catches a lot of people with wheat and shellfish allergies especially.
"Gluten-friendly" is not "gluten-free"
Watch the exact wording. "Gluten-free" is a claim about the food. "Gluten-friendly" or "made without gluten ingredients" is usually a quiet way of saying "we left the wheat out but cannot promise about cross-contact." That distinction matters, and the menu is telling you something real if you catch it.
Let the menu narrow it down, then confirm
Use the menu to cross off the obvious no's and find two or three real candidates. Then confirm those with the kitchen, because the menu can only tell you so much. If you want to skip straight to the shortlist, run the restaurant through AllergyTable and it will flag the risky dishes against your profile and tell you what to double check.
The menu is a starting point, never the final word. Read it to know what to ask, then let the people in the kitchen give you the answer.