London Eats

So, how was the food?

I have to say, I ate pretty well in London - but it took some effort, just not for the usual reasons. Generally when I travel, the most work goes into ensuring that the food I order will be safe for me. And there's always a certain amount of 'wing and a prayer' that goes into it, because ultimately the way different places observe allergy protocols really varies.

In that regard, in London I didn't have to worry about that. Why? Well, there is a UK law called "Natasha's Law" that mandates full ingredient and allergen labeling for pre-packaged food, whether it's a cafe, grocery store, restaurant, or even a food truck. This means that food businesses must clearly label all ingredients, with allergens emphasized, on products they prepare and package on-site before a customer chooses or orders them. And this is not a trivial law; failure to comply appropriately can land an establishment unlimited fines, plus potential jail time for a person who does not give appropriate information.

Every single place I went, without exception, handled this well. That didn't mean there was always something for me to order - in fact, it did help in the sense that there were places that simply couldn't accommodate me. Fair enough; I'd rather know in advance than have someplace try to "Macgyver" it and make me sick.

Listen, even cooking for myself sometimes seems like a lot of trouble when taking my food needs into account. I have Celiac, and am allergic to dairy plus sensitive to other foods. I eat mainly plant based (with some very rare exceptions for fish if there's literally nothing else to eat). Finding gluten free food wasn't hard; neither was finding vegan food. Finding food that encompassed both - that was harder. Had I been more willing to branch out into different ethnic foods, I am very sure I would have had more options. London is full of amazing dining opportunities - we saw Indian restaurants, Asian restaurants, Middle Eastern restaurants, Italian restaurants, Ukrainian restaurants, even a "Uzbek street foods" cafe. I wish we could have tried some of these, but for various reasons we are just not adventurous eaters.

Being the nerd that I am, I researched heavily before our trip. When we made our hotel reservation that included breakfasts, I contacted the Clermont London to find out if they could accommodate me at breakfast. I needn't have worried. Every morning, the host brought me gluten free toast, fruit, soy milk for my coffee, and whatever else I wanted (one day he brought me beans...I appreciated the effort but could not bring myself to do beans and toast).

I had a couple of stand out lunches. One was our Westminster day - we wandered around and found a pub we thought sounded promising. And it was! I got hummus and vegetables, and gluten safe chips (fries)! This made my day - it's just not that often I can eat french fries out due to cross contamination in the fryers. Another was the cafe within the Tower of London complex. It was sort of a salad bar/hot cold bar setup with other stations for sandwiches, etc. I had a delicious quinoa salad and they had a separate table with allergy friendly pastries. Getting to have cake out at a meal is a real treat. For that matter, the ice cream tent at Buckingham Palace had vegan soft serve! I kid you not. It was almost as exciting as seeing the palace itself. We also discovered a London staple - Pret a Manger. These are small cafes where you can get coffees and fresh pastries but they also have a whole refrigerated case of a variety of sandwiches, salads, and other entrees to take out. They had a really good sweet potato falafel/quinoa/hummus salad that I ate twice. Knowing I could find that if I needed to took a lot of the stress off the lunch search. Dinners were more hit and miss. I did really well at the Italian restaurants we went to where I could get gluten free pasta with vegetables; the first restaurant even did a vegan gluten free bolognese sauce which was delicious and very satisfying. We ate at a London favorite called "Happy" in Picadilly Square where they were very kind but told me the only options I had were a cucumber/tomato salad and the guacamole with tortilla chips. That was enough for me and it was very good, but not a repeat. The one place were I really struggled was a steakhouse we went to the last night. Based on the online menu it looked more promising but once we arrived, it became clear that my one choice was grilled salmon with plain green beans (not pictured). It fed me but it was hardly satisfying.

Other great finds (and if you guessed I have a sweet tooth from this you might be right) included a little bakery cafe owned by a Ukrainian lady which was totally vegan and gluten free, called Cream Dream. I splurged here and got a chocolate eclair and a cookie. Delicious. There was an ice cream shop called Udderlicious which made very good vegan ice cream in several flavors (the black cherry flavor was awesome).

I splurged and subscribed to an app called The Gluten Dude and it was extremely helpful. I found it to be far more comprehensive than Find Me Gluten Free.

So there it is - the story of (my) food in London. As I said, if you have only one allergy, and/or are more open to all kinds of foods and cuisines, you will have an easy time and do not have to worry one bit about safety once you order your food. That in itself makes the UK a really desirable destination for people with food allergies, and even though I struggled some days to find food I could or wanted to eat, once I found it, knowing I was safe to eat it was a huge burden lifted.

Thanks London!