Can we eat here?
A dining series about the joy of eating out with food allergies — the ingredients, the conversations, and the care that makes a guest feel informed and welcome.
Beyond how beautiful the food looks or how delicious it tastes.
I'm a French-trained chef who also lives with food allergies. So I bring two perspectives to every table — the culinary one, and the personal one. Each episode explores the ingredients, the conversations with restaurant staff, and the quiet care that helps guests feel informed and welcome.
The goal is simple: celebrate thoughtful hospitality, and help viewers ask useful questions about their own dining needs.
Recent experiences
Each visit reflects my needs and what we learned that day. It isn't a guarantee that a restaurant is safe for every allergy.
01Maison Laroche · Brooklyn, NY
The Quiet Confidence of a Tasting Menu
A multi-course tasting where every dish was rebuilt around a single allergy — without losing a single flavor.
02Sora & Salt · Portland, OR
Conversations Behind the Counter
What a five-minute chat with the chef revealed about cross-contact, trust, and the language of hospitality.
03Tessitura · Charleston, SC
Reading the Room, Reading the Menu
How a thoughtful front-of-house team turns a list of restrictions into an evening that feels effortless.
Your host
Chef Janelle Pitterson
French-trained, allergy-aware, and endlessly curious about what makes a restaurant feel like a place where you belong. I sit down with the people behind the food to understand how they care for guests whose needs aren't always on the menu.
Finding a table where you can truly relax shouldn't feel like a gamble.
For the millions of people living with food allergies, eating out is too often a quiet negotiation — scanning menus for hidden ingredients, rehearsing questions for the server, and trusting that a kitchen will treat a restriction as more than an inconvenience. The wrong assumption can turn an evening out into a risk.
Chef Janelle turns that uncertainty into a conversation. Drawing on her French training and her own life with allergies, she sits down with restaurants before the first plate arrives — asking about sourcing, cross-contact, and the small choices that separate a careful kitchen from a careless one.
The result isn't a seal of approval. It's a clearer picture of how a restaurant thinks about its guests — and a model for the questions any diner can bring to the table.
Ask before you arrive
Reach out in advance. A restaurant that welcomes the question is already telling you something about how it treats its guests.
Talk to the kitchen, not just the menu
Menus describe dishes, but the people cooking them know the details. Cross-contact, shared equipment, and substitutions live in that conversation.
Treat each visit as its own answer
Staff change, menus shift, and what was safe once may not be next time. Every experience is a snapshot — never a guarantee.
Every experience on Can We Eat Here? reflects one visit and one set of needs. It is not a guarantee that a restaurant is safe for every allergy. Always speak directly with the restaurant about your own requirements.