Marlowe & Finch Guest · Menu Q&A
Multilingual menu Q&A

Ask in your language. Answered from the kitchen's facts.

Scan the QR at the table and ask about any dish — in English, 中文, Bahasa Melayu or Tamil. The agent answers only from our curated allergen table; if it isn't sure, it says so and fetches a person. For a severe allergy, it always does.

Languages supported
4
English, 中文, Bahasa Melayu, Tamil
Dishes covered
17
Every plate, with verified allergens
Allergen questions handled
312 /mo
Answered from the table, not improvised
Escalations to staff
11 /mo
Severe allergies — never auto-answered

Real questions, grounded answers

Language detected automatically. Every allergen line is read from the dish record.
Each table has a QR code. A guest scans it, the menu opens in their phone's language, and they can ask anything about a dish before they order — no waiting to catch a server's eye.
EnglishTopic · ingredients
Table 6 · 19:42
Guest asked What's in the pie floater?
AgentSource · dish record

The pie floater is a beef-cheek and bone-marrow pithivier sitting in a pea velouté — a savoury pie in a pool of green pea soup. It's one of our signature dishes.

It contains gluten (the pastry) and dairy. If you'd like it adjusted, let us know and we'll check with the kitchen.

ContainsGlutenDairy
Bahasa MelayuTopic · dietary · pork
Table 11 · 20:05
Guest asked Adakah terdapat khinzir dalam boudin? "Is there pork in the boudin?"
AgenSumber · rekod hidangan

Tidak — boudin blanc kami diperbuat daripada buaya, bukan khinzir, disiramkan sauce gribiche dan selada air. Hidangan ini mengandungi telur dan tenusu.

"No — our boudin blanc is made with crocodile, not pork, with sauce gribiche and watercress. The dish contains egg and dairy."

MengandungiTelur · EggTenusu · DairyTiada khinzir · No pork
中文Topic · vegetarian · sides
Table 3 · 12:38
Guest asked 有适合素食者的配菜吗? "Are there any sides suitable for vegetarians?"
智能助手来源 · 菜品记录

有两道无肉配菜:褐化牛油薯泥(含乳制品)和丛林番茄焗薯片(含乳制品)。

请留意:碳烤西兰苔佐凤尾鱼酱,含坚果(澳洲坚果),并非纯素。如需更严格的素食安排,我们可请厨房协助。

"Two meat-free sides: pommes purée (contains dairy) and bush tomato gratin (contains dairy). Note the charred broccolini uses an anchovy dressing — it contains fish and tree-nut, so it isn't vegetarian. For stricter needs we can ask the kitchen."

无肉配菜薯泥 · 乳制品番茄焗薯 · 乳制品

A severe allergy — facts, then a human

The agent gives the grounded facts but never guarantees safety. A severe allergy always goes to staff.
TamilSeverity · highTopic · allergen / safety
Table 8 · 20:21
Guest stated எனக்கு கடுமையான கொட்டை ஒவ்வாமை உள்ளது. புகையூட்டிய கடல் டிரவுட் சாப்பிட பாதுகாப்பானதா? "I have a severe tree-nut allergy. Is the smoked ocean trout safe for me to eat?"
முகவர் · AgentSource · dish record

Not suitable. The smoked Tasmanian ocean trout contains tree-nut — specifically fermented bunya nut, and macadamia appears elsewhere on the menu (the charred broccolini). It also contains fish and dairy.

For a severe allergy I can't promise a dish is completely safe — I can't account for shared surfaces or trace contact in the kitchen. I've asked a member of staff to come to your table to confirm what's safe for you tonight.

Trout containsTree-nut · bunyaFishDairy
⚑ Escalated to staffnot answered by the agent alone

Why this was escalated: the guest declared a severe tree-nut allergy. The agent will state what a dish contains from the verified table, but it will never guarantee absolute safety — cross-contact and trace exposure are a kitchen judgement, not a data lookup. A stated severe allergy is always routed to a person.

Routed to: Floor server · Table 8 Kitchen · allergen check Action · confirm in person before ordering

What it won't do: invent an ingredient

If it isn't on the dish, the agent says so — it doesn't conjure a plausible answer.
EnglishTopic · ingredients
Table 2 · 19:10
Guest asked Do you use wattleseed in the barramundi? I love a wattleseed crust.
AgentSource · dish record

Not in the barramundi — it's cooked en papillote with a lemon myrtle beurre blanc and samphire, and the record lists fish and dairy as its allergens. There's no wattleseed in it, and no wattleseed crust.

We do cook with wattleseed elsewhere from time to time, but I'll only tell you it's in a dish if the dish record says so. Shall I point you to the plates that genuinely lean native?

Barramundi containsFishDairyNo wattleseed
⛓ Grounded — answered from the fixed ingredient set

The agent draws native ingredients only from the kitchen's canonical list. It will not invent a dish or an ingredient that isn't on the record, and it doesn't pretend wattleseed is in a plate just because a guest hoped it might be.

finger limeDavidson plumlemon myrtlenative pepperberrybunya nutsaltbushquandongmacadamiamanukabush tomatowattleseed macadamia honey crustwattleseed jus

This grounding — answering only from the verified record and refusing to invent — is exactly what the quality layer (UC12) watches for. Every correct refusal and every "ask staff" hand-off is logged there, so the safety net is auditable, not merely asserted.

Under the hood How the Q&A is grounded — and where it should go next

This is a design concept, not a live system — the exchanges above are illustrative. What it shows is the one mechanism that matters: retrieval-only answering. Each dish has a curated record — ingredients, allergens, whether it's a signature — and the agent answers only from that record. If a question maps to a known dish, it answers from the table; if the dish, ingredient or confidence isn't there, it says "I'm not sure — please ask staff" rather than inferring. Languages are handled at the model layer; the facts are not. The whole point, for allergens, is that it would rather defer than guess.

On the roadmap

  1. One verified source of truth. The allergen and ingredient table is hand-curated and owned by the kitchen — a single record per dish that every language reads from, so the Tamil answer and the English answer can never disagree. Get the data hygiene right and the answers follow.
  2. Defer by default. Severe allergies and any low-confidence match route to a person — the agent states what a dish contains but never certifies it safe. Cross-contact is a kitchen judgement, never a chatbot's. This is the line a confident "100% nut-free" bot crosses and we don't.
  3. A fifth language for the tourist segment. Japanese alongside the four official languages, matched to the device's locale on scan — the menu opens already in the guest's language.
  4. Sit on SG-native plumbing. Buy the QR ordering and PDPA-resident data from a local player (Qashier, Oddle); keep the guardrailed Q&A layer as the part worth building, because no off-the-shelf tool ships the refusal behaviour.
  5. Everything logged for the quality layer. Every answer, every "ask staff" deferral and every escalation is recorded for UC12 — health-sensitive query text minimised under the PDPA — so the safety behaviour is measurable, not a promise.
Full use-case write-up — the problem, benefits and vendor landscape: UC10 — Multilingual menu Q&A → Concept mock-up — illustrative data, not a live system.