All posts filed under: Central London

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Gluten Free Dining at Blixen, Spitalfields

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Blixen is a new opening just around the corner from Spitalfields Market. It stands on the site of an old bank, two walls house huge windows with metal fanlights to let in acres of natural light.   The interior décor is all rough brickwork, whitewashed and surmounted with walnut wood. The ceiling’s a beautiful construction of pale floorboards. The bar’s a white shrine, cunningly lit, with bottles of spirits in glass-fronted cupboards, and globe lamps on stalks. Beside the kitchen is a cute pergola hung with vines, past which you’ll find an outdoor terrace for drinks. Downstairs there’s a little cocktail bar that takes up to 45 drinkers and a private dining room for 18 in the old vaults.   The owners are Clive Watson, who’s spent a decade doing up London pubs (notably The Garrison and The Riding House Café) and Justin Gilbert, a designer of immense style and swishiness. Their first restaurant is perfectly proportioned, cosy, bustling and instantly appealing to walk into.   Gluten Free Food at Blixen: Gluten free options on …

gluten free chotto matte

Japanese Meets Peruvian at Chotto Matte, Soho

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Chotto Matte is a Japanese restaurant, grill and sushi bar fusing traditional clean lines with a grungy Tokyo style. Sounds weird, right? But go with it. It’s good. The Soho restaurant is causing a bit of a stir at the moment, meaning it’s near impossible to get a table unless you want to eat really early (like a child) or really late (like an alcoholic). However, if you’re lucky and turn up on a whim mid-week you might be able to squeeze in at the sushi bar or take a pew beside the robata grill, where you can watch the masterful chefs at work. We headed to Chotto Matte for an after-work dinner and were really pleased with the huge selection of gluten-free dishes on offer. Not only that, the waiters were incredibly friendly, knowledgeable and helpful, so we were assured that almost any dish could be tweaked to make it gluten-free. Full marks. Now the food is expensive, we’ve got to admit, but it’s definitely worth the hefty price tag. We tucked into the …

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Gluten Free Options at Big Easy, King’s Road Chelsea

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Big Easy brings a taste (and the portion sizes) of the USA to London town. The crab shack was born on the King’s Road in Chelsea, but they’ve now opened a newish version of the same thing in the tourist wonderland that is Covent Garden. We traipsed along the alarmingly fancy King’s Road to try out the very first Big Easy for a girls dinner one evening in February. We could never have fully prepared for what was about to happen. On first impression the restaurant looked great; buzzing, lively and fun. It smelt of fried food and calories. People were smiling, some were wearing bibs. All was good.     We wandered downstairs to find a table before ordering all the margheritas. When in Rome etc.   The waitress gave us our menus, we were pleased to find the Big Easy team had good gluten free knowledge, and can provide a menu which clearly marks which dishes are suitable for gluten free diets. You can view the Big Easy gluten free menu here.   …

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Gluten Free BBQ at Bodean’s, Soho

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If you haven’t visited Bodean’s BBQ, you need to. The chain of restaurants has taken London by storm, and now there are branches all across the capital. Back in 2002 Andre Blais had a dream – to bring the taste, the style, the soul of his beloved Kansas City barbecue to the UK. 10 years later, the Bodean’s family of diner-delis has branches all across the capital. And it’s totally gluten-free friendly – hip hip (hooray). You’ll find Bodeans BBQ in Soho, Fulham, Clapham, Tower Hill and Balham. We visited the Soho branch, after a traumatising trip to Oxford Street to attempt the ultimately unsuccessful purchase of a new sofa. On arrival we were asked whether we wanted to sit in the deli, which is a much more informal café style atmosphere with food in baskets and so on, or the downstairs restaurant which is a little more formal, but still quite relaxed. We went with the latter. There was a waiting time (there always is) but they add your name and number to the …

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Gluten Free Sticks ‘n’ Sushi, Covent Garden

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As much as we hate all restaurants whose names contain an ‘n’, we have to admit we quite enjoyed our time at Sticks ‘n’ Sushi in Covent Garden. The company combines Scandinavian design and Japanese cuisine, which works bizarrely well we have to admit. The restaurant looks classy and elegant, the chairs are comfy and the tables are far enough apart that you’re not sitting on some strangers lap like you are at Flesh ‘n’ Buns around the corner. The menu is terrifyingly big, so big it took us at least 25 minutes to read the whole thing, never mind decide what to order. Of course Japanese cuisine is always a pretty good choice for gluten free dining, and this one didn’t disappoint, the menu was brimming with gluten free options and Sticks ‘n’ Sushi even provides gluten free soy sauce. We went for a rainbow roll (aka all the fillings in one roll because we’re greedy ok), a smoked roll with smoked salmon and smoked cream cheese, avocado maki and a spring onion and …