Gluten free in Harrogate

Harrogate is one of my favourite towns to visit in the United Kingdom. It takes a heart of stone to not fall in love with the typical Yorkshire way of life and this is very much depicted throughout. When booking a staycation honeymoon, Harrogate was the first place on my mind and we both decided to stay a few nights at the end of our Honeymoon.

We chose to stay at the Crown hotel. I have currently stayed at the Majestic hotel (before it was brought by Hilton) and the Premier Inn. All three are lovely hotels and cater well for us gluten free folk, there is one thing to be mindful off. Buffet breakfasts and I will use the Crown hotel as an example. They labelled the hot breakfast options with (GF). In this case, the sausages were not gluten free but the bacon was. That said, it was the same set of tongs used to pick both items. If you are sensitive to cross contamination, you might want to see if the bacon can be cooked separately. Also, neither three of the chains offer a gluten free cereal but do cook gluten free toast separately.

We didn’t eat at the hotel on this particular trip, we had three meals out. Each restaurant understood the seriousness of being gluten free and to not cross-contaminate.

On the first evening, we opted to have an Indian and went to Spice Culture where high expectations were met. At the time of visiting and writing this blog, they currently have a 5/5 trip advisor rating and it is deserved. I had a popadom which was cooked in fresh oil that did not contain gluten followed by a Jalfrezi and coconut rice.

The following night, we had booked a table at Cuba Revolution but they had run down their kitchens ahead of a deep clean. We booked as we have had a wonderful tapas there before and they also cater well for gluten free folk. Instead, we found a lovely Italian that offer their pasta and pizzas with a gluten free option, all cooked separately. The Italian was called Buon Gusto.

Our original honeymoon booked was for Corfu and due to Covid, this has been moved to next year. That said, we still had a Greek night on our final evening. We dined at Papa’s Mediterranean. If you mention on arrival you are gluten free, they will provide gluten free pita breads. Here I tried a Greek lamb dish known as Stifado. A lovely Lamb stew cooked in a tomato and cinnamon sauce. Keep an eye out for the recipe in upcoming weeks.

For our trips out we visited the National trust Fountains Abbey. As with all National trust locations, the cafe offered a selection of gluten free options. I opted for the soup with a gluten free roll.

On the second day, we had another no drive day and found a Love Brownies cafe. All their brownies are gluten free and they also have vegan ones. I had a coconut brownie with vanilla ice cream.

We had planned to visit Betty’s for their gluten free afternoon tea. I have had this before and as you would expect, it is amazing. Sadly we had left it too late to get in and there was over an hour queue at RHS Harlow Carr branch of Betty’s. We had brought a ‘Made without’ sandwich from Marks and Spencer’s to take home so we had this in the car, before driving back to sunny Lincolnshire.