Gluten Free in the UK
- Carla
- Sep 7, 2015
- 7 min read
Eating gluten free in the UK is relatively easy, they are a lot more aware of Coeliac Disease, and many more restaurants often gluten free options. Buying packaged food is also easy if you already know how to read labels to find gluten free food. The UK has the same labelling laws as Australia, so you can easily identify gluten in food. The exception to this is Oats, while FSANZ classifies the protein avenin in oats as gluten, in the UK it's considred gluten free. 1 in 5 people with Coeliac Disease reacts to oats, and I am one of them. Coeliac Australia recomends all Coeliacs avoid oats, as you could be doing damage to your small intestine while not actually experiencing any symptoms. Oats are clearly labelled as an allegen on packaging so it's easy to avoid, it just means you can't take the gluten free label at face value and you have to read the ingredients list to check for oats. You will find things labelled Coeliac Friendly or Safe for Coeliacs on some packaging too.
When I travel I always carry gluten free snack bars and protein balls with me for the odd time when I can't find anything gluten free to eat while I'm out. I also keep snaplock bags with me so I can buy gluten free food in supermarkets and save the rest for later, or cut it up and take it with me the next day. I know sometimes it looks a bit funny pulling out a snap lock bag but it's better than going hungry is there are no other options. I find lunch time and breakfasts hardest as you don't always want a big meal just something small. The days I had trouble finding lunch was when I didn't want to sit down to eat a meal.
Eating Out
One of the best new places I found in London was Leon, they have amazing relatively healthy hotboxes. A lot of their menu is gluten free, some is dairy free and they also have nut free Their baked fries are yummy. They have a few sweet options too yummy dessert slices like millionaires shortbread (caramel slice), brownies and lemon ginger slice - I wish we had something like this in Australia - Check out their wesbite for more information - http://leonrestaurants.co.uk/
The Leon on the Strand, not too far from my friend's work, where we had lunch - photo from tripadvisor.co.uk
Other places with good inexpensive and quick lunch options include, Sainsburys, Costa Coffee and Star bucks. This depends on the indivivdual stores though. Usually there is one gluten free wrap option. I was there at Christmas-time so mostly the option was turkey and cranberry wraps, not my favoruite but I was just thankful to have a gluten free option. There are sometimes salads and other pre-packed gf options.
Gluten Free Reading
Nibsy's in Reading is a 100% gluten free cafe in the main shopping area in Reading. They have take away and eat in options. I have a lovely gluten free toastie and cup of tea. They had lots of lovely looking cakes and other food.
Another place we went for dinner was Las Iguanas, they had a seperate gluten free menu. http://www.iguanas.co.uk/
Las Iguanas separate gluten free menu
My entree was gluten free corn chip with guacamole, oh and a cocktail.
My main course, I chose chicken and colesale with salad. Think there was a second cocktail there somewhere too. Gotta love the UK for their cheap happy hour cocktail specials :)
We spent one of the weekends I was in the UK in Bath. Bath has a Roman Spa and the Pump rooms do a lovey afternoon tea. We arrived just before they closed, as as we ate so much this ended up being dinner too. We went for the Christmas markets and my friends got tickets for us to see a local pantomime. Christmas pantomimes are such a big thing in the UK, I had never been to one until I moved to London.
Gluten Free finger sandwiches
We didn't eat out much on this trip. There were some wonderful gf meals I had in Barcelona but I will do a seperate post on those. I quite like to cook and staying with friends makes it easier. It's also cheaper. A lot of things are easier to buy gluten free in the UK as they use actual corn flour insread of wheat cornflour. When I got sick i was able to buy the fresh cartons of chicken and vegetable soup as they were gluten free.
We had Dim Sum one day for lunch at Ping Pong on Southbank, they had a small range of gluten free options and they brought me out gluten free soy sauce. We used to go to Dim Sum quite a bit when I lived in London and it's something I really miss. http://www.pingpongdimsum.com/
We spent a day in Greenwich going to the markets and wandering around. We used to live in Greenwich so it's like going home for me. When I lived there, there were 3 different markets, we used to meet for breakfast on saturday mornings at the local pub, and often end the day at The Gypsy Moth, which became our local. I had a bit of trouble finding gluten free food for lunch this time around. The guy at the Paella place told me it was gluten free, then as I walked away with my plate I noticed a sign on a menu board saying it contained gluten. After my friend making the guy give me my money back I ended up having lunch in a local restaurant. It's called deperardo's and has mexican style food. I think I had gluten free burritos.
The other mexican place where we used to ear years ago and it's still there is Cafe Sol. We went back into Greenwich the next day and ate there.
The last place we ate out was at Locale in Blackheath. http://www.localerestaurants.com/restaurant_info.php?restaurant=Blackheath
I forgot to take photo's but the food was good and I didn't sick.
Breads and Cakes and other yummies
I tried several different types of gluten free bread while in the UK. I really liked this one, pretty much just like normal bread (from what I remember)
I made toast for breakfast on the first morning I arrived. Peanut butter on gf toast and a cup of tea.
My other favorite gluten free bread was Genius.
Just like what I remember nornal bread was like.
The supermarkets had so many gluten free cakes. I always used to shop at Sainsburys but all the supermarket chains in the UK have a gluten free range.
Marks and Spencers is a but more expensive but I foud some lovely cakes there:
This coffe and walnut cake was really nice.
M&S also have these gluten free fruit scones, they were good with Jam. I might have eaten these for breakfast one day. Woops. To be fair (popular UK saying) I was sick for a lot of the time I was there.
Gluten Free Victoria Sponge by M&S. Need I say more...
Another find at M&S (Marks and Sparks for anyone into London rhyming slang). At this point your are probably wondering how much cake I ate. Well I had to taste is all, while I was there, we mostly opened them with other people, and it was close to christmas.
though. I did a lot of walking...
They also had white iced christmas cakes and fruit mince pies, I don't have photo's of those. Each store had different things in stock, so worth popping in for a look.
Sainsburys also have a big range, here are some of the things I found...
Yummy Moist chocolate logs, Gluten and Dairy free
Gluten Free Jam Tarts, 2 of each flavour.
Gluten Free Pecan tarts, I think these ended up coming home with me. There is only so much cake and sweet stuff one person can eat. :)
Despite me taking my home made gluten free fruit cake to the UK with me, I bought one of these. I get a bit over excited and buy too much gluten free stuff when I see it. I always think I need to buy it even if I don't really want it, so they don't stop stocking it for when I do.
I found a gluten free apple crumble at one of the sainsburys
We ate it on Christmas eve with icecream.
There are so many other gluten free things you can buy, especially at the bigger Sainsbury's, they have pretzels and gluten free frozen pizza's and gluten free yorkshire puddings. There are lots of gluten free crackers and chips and savory things too.
Christmas day - we bought a gf turkey, and gluten free stuffing
Mrs Crimble's has a lot of gluten free options in the UK.
There were a couple of days where I couldn't find a quick gluten free option for lunch and just snacked on protein balls and crisps.
These Tyrell's crisps were some of my favoruites. And to my surprise, a few weeks after I came home, they started selling them in Australia. Yay!!
Another place I bought gluten free was at Greenwich Markets, the gluten free cupcakes looked so lovely. The lady at the stall said it was her daughters business, when I told her I make gluten free cakes at home in Australia, she told me not to steal her daughters Ideas. Um, ok.... anyway they were pretty dry and not very nice, I can't imagine why I would want to copy. Here is a photo...
There is so much gluten free cider in the UK, I'm sure you will find one or two you like. I always used to drink Brothers or Kopparberg, or Bulmers on tap. There are a few gluten free beers you can buy at the supermarkets.
There are plenty of chain restaurants that say they offer gluten free but I didn't eat at any of them, there is only so much pizza and pasta I can eat, so I didn't investigate how they go with cross contimination etc. I would recommend asking questions at each individual store.
Some chains that offer gluten free
Jamie's Italian
Wagamama
Pizza Express
Ask Italian
Pizza Hut
Domino's
Ed's Easy Diner
Handmade Burger Co
Prezzo
Carluccio's
Frankie and Benny's
And here are some other pages you might find useful:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/restaurants/11597946/10-best-London-restaurants-to-eat-gluten-free-food.html
http://www.glutenfreefoodie.co.uk/
I didn't find joining Coeliac Uk very helpful, they only list restaurants and chains that are registered with them, I found lots of nicer placer to eat just by using google.
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