Gluten free in the UK! Our favorite spots
We were able to visit the UK this last summer (2023) and had such an amazing time! Although our two oldest kids weren’t able to join us 😭 we did have so much fun with the younger two! As well as drama, frustration, and annoyance, but you know, a family trip.
We’re off! Well to Charlotte, then off to the UK!
Highlights…
Holy….it was so cool over there! The history is crazy, so much older than here in the US, did you know there are burial sites in Ireland that pre-date the pyramids?! Who knew! (My wife did) We got to see Hadrian’s wall which was built by the Romans and literally divided the UK in half, stretching 73 miles from the North Sea to the Irish Sea ( Our 16 year old, “It’s just a wall, I’ll stay in the car”). We were able to visit a couple castles, Bamburgh Castle of Netflix’s The Last Kingdom and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, and Castleroche, which is an abandoned castle in Ireland that we definitely didn’t trespass on ( The kids loved that). And of course all of the famous London sites, the Tower, The Bridge, etc.
But of course the real highlight for anyone who is severely gluten free like myself, dedicated gluten free restaurants! Oh my they have some great ones in the UK, annnd since Natalie and I are both allergic to soy the UK is extra nice because they don’t use “vegetable” (soybean) oil like they do everywhere in the States!
London: Paladar - Latin American Restaurant
London: Andina Spitalfields - Peruvian Food
London: Wicked Fish Spitalfields - Fish and Chips
Manchester: Off The Wheaten Track - Breakfast food
Edinburgh: Tupiniquim - Brazilian Crepes
London…a great place for gluten free
London was amazing for me in terms of gluten free options, I have not eaten out so good in a long time, and certainly not since.
Paladar was our favorite by far, the food was simply wayyy better than we were expecting, the cocktails were so delicious, and the service was phenomenal. I have not had anything like this before, and so didn’t really know what to expect, perhaps that was why it was so good. But we ended up going back a second time because we loved it! We highly recommend…everything! Their appetizers were great, their drinks were great, their mains were great, and their desserts…you guessed it! Great! It was a little pricier than some of the other places we went, but in terms of value, worth the price!
Andina was also great, and we probably would have loved it more if we hadn’t eaten it after Paladar! 😆 We also arrived one night a half hour before they said they were closed, but they were already closed (we probably shouldn’t have arrived a half hour before close anyway, but it was our first night there and we were very hungry and not thinking straight). However, we went back and the food was really good! The ambience was nice, the price was less than Paladar, and everyone was happy with the food! But maybe eat here before you go to Paladar, they ruined us for Latin food for the rest of the trip!
Wicked Fish was delicious! Wow I have not had fish and chips in forever! And this place was so so good. We were able to walk to the Tower Bridge from this location, and we felt good walking afterwards. My wife and I found a gluten free fish and chips place in Canada once, it was really the only gluten free fish and chips we’d ever had and so we ate there about 4 or 5 times in the span of a few days……and our stomachs were wrecked! We over did it. This place was not as greasy and I feel like we could have eaten there a few times without any problems! The portions were massive, the price was great, and the flavors (flavours) were classic fish and chips! Definitely stop by if you are in the area!
Off The Wheaten Track is called a deli and cheese specialist, but in talking with the owner we found out they pivoted during covid, and now are more a breakfast place. And what a breakfast place they are!! We found this place on a whim, checking the Find Me Gluten Free app while driving down from Scotland to London and we were getting hungry around Manchester. This place is a little south of there, and we thought it could be worth checking out. It was the best breakfast place I’ve ever been to! You can check out their menu on the website, but it seemed like they had a ton more there in the store. Pastries, pasties, cakes, breads, bagels, and everything was baked to perfection. Honestly the crispiness on the pasties was crazy. I cannot recommend this place enough for breakfast or lunch if you are in the area, or even if you are within an hour driving distance! The desserts were good too, I ate most of it before I remembered to take a picture!
Last, but not least at all, was Tupiniquim! What a cute little place in the middle of a large and crazy city! We were there during fringe, and would love to go back to actually see some of the shows, but we were there mostly to see the city, go on a spooky ghost tour, and try this little gem of a restaurant. This is another place we ate at multiple times, it was the only place we could find that was safe for me to eat at in Edinburgh, but we weren’t sad about that once we tried it! We had not tried Brazilian Crepes before but we love Brazi Bites and so we figured they would be good. They were fantastic! Such great flavors, more like a burrito than what I would have though of as a crepe, but in no way is that a bad thing! I want to learn how to make them!
We ate a few other places, Indian food is usually safe for me and we ate at a couple good restaurants, but these that I noted were by far the best and were all 100% gluten free! Natalie is not strictly on a gluten free diet and so she is a better judge of what is really good food, and not just “good for gluten free” as she still gets to eat normal food! (I’m jealous). She says all of these places she’d recommend to anyone, not just to people who are gluten free! So there you have it! These are our top places to eat in the UK so far! Hopefully we will get to visit again and find some more great places!
A note on eating gluten free in the UK….
One nice thing about the UK that almost makes me want to move there is they have a great selection of gluten free food in the grocery stores, and it’s not more expensive than all the other food!! When we were in Ireland there weren’t any dedicated gluten free restaurants near us and so we made food at home a lot. We still ate good! I mean, we ate take and bake frozen food that was a treat for us because we don’t have anything like it here, and if we do it would be twice the price! So if you can’t find any restaurants nearby, check out the local grocer and see what you can find!
This bread was our favorite!!
