Golden Willow — Restaurant in Horsham

WARNING food safety especially people with food allergy

Over a week ago (on 14th October) I went to Golden Willow in Storrington for the first time to order take away. It was quite a shocking and alarming experience.

I have Oral Allergy Syndrome (allergic to various fruits and nuts) so I carry a list of allergens when I go to restaurant so the manager of the restaurant can show that to the chef, waiters will not take an order from me – it has to be the manager. My food allergy has never stopped me to go out and enjoy meal and I never have any restaurant refuse to serve me.

Before I ordered the the food at Golden Willow, I mentioned to a staff that I have food allergy. She literally just walked away from me without informing me that she would go to get a manager! A while later a staff came to serve me, who I found out later it's the restaurant owner called Mandy Cheung.

I gave her the list and the minute she looked at my list she said WOW! And to my unexpected surprise she said she couldn't serve me due to kitchen handles nuts. So I told her I'm ok with airborne allergens and she looked completely blank. I asked her if she knew what airborne allergens was and her reply was no. So I had to explain to her as well as informing her that as long as the kitchenwares/utensils were not contaminated with the allergens then it's safe for me. She didn't seem to understand so I explained that for example a knife and board to use to cut an apple (one of my allergens) must be cleaned before preparing my food. She had expressed the same facial expression as when I mentioned about the airborne allergens. I was quite shocked that being in the food industry she doesn't know what airborne allergen is but worst of all not aware of cross contamination.

She then said to me she had customers to serve basically to tell me to leave. So I said to her 'so you want to serve your easy customer rather than serving me.' Her reply was 'yes'. Shocking!

I read the review on Google and have found so many people with allergy and intolerant had reaction from consuming their food; one person (not known if had food allergy) had food poisoning.

The lack of understanding in food allergens that can and have killed many people is very alarming. Although the restaurant has received 5 stars from Food Standards Agency (FSA) for the hygiene at the beginning of this year is non-relevant to food allergy knowledge. Also FSA doesn't always carry out non-announce visit so things could have been just on show for FSA inspector.

There are food outlets so scared of breaching The Food Safety Act that they refuse to serve people with food allergy and many have used the excuse of cross contamination in the kitchen to avoid a bit of caution in preparing food for people with food allergy.

These food outlets little they know that they have actually DISCRIMINATED people with food allergy by BREACHING EQUALITY ACT 2010. How? People with food allergy (regardless the severity) has met the definition of disability under the Act. Hay fever is not as it's a SEASONAL allergy. Lots of people think only visible physical impairment is disability but in fact there are many long-term illnesses (non-visible from physical appearance) that have a substantial and long-term adverse effect on suffers' ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities are also disabled people.

I for sure will never step my foot in that restaurant again and will tell all my friends not to spend their money to support a business that DISCRIMINATES disabled people.

I have written to FSA as well as the local authority as I don't feel I have done my part to minimize/prevent risk that might...

Bizarre and disappointing time here. I came here after reading an article about them being a “gluten free gem”- fellow coeliacs will know it’s impossible to get GF Chinese food so I was very excited. However, they very obviously do not. Upon entry, the waiter gave us a gluten free menu with highlighted what I could have and we ordered. It wasn’t until about an hour into our visit that the waiter came out to tell me that nothing could be made for me unfortunately and that they couldn’t serve us! I’m still completely baffled by the experience. They put it down to lack of GF soy sauce but even then dishes can be made without. But alas he shook my husbands hand and apologised to us, and our drinks and starters were on the house (they’d brought me some plain spare ribs which weren’t very nice) and we left. I can’t fault the waiters manners and he was obviously sorry, the issue seems to have been in the kitchen for some reason being unable to make anything for me. Very sad date...

We got a takeaway order. We live 20mins away and we paid £44 pounds for 4 dishes which is extremely expensive especially as one of are dishes we order was missing!!! The other dish we order was a beef chowmain and this one had a couple hairs in it which put us off straight away so we had to throw that in the bin and the overall taste of the foodbwas very bland to be honest. I phoned up the restaurant to let them know what happend they were very apologetic and suggested we came back to the restaurant with the food to exchange the dishes. We didn't want to drive back there as its 20mins away and the first experience has put us off. No mention of a refund for the 1 missing dish or the dish with hair in it. Not a good experience at this place will not be...