Today I want to tell you about the remarkable contribution to this tea party made by Claridge’s: the French pastries.

Claridge’s expert staff had created some very sophisticated cakes for this tea party:

• beautiful raspberry and rosewater macaroons: girlie pink, packed with raspberries and cream, and decorated with a rose-petal and a single dew-drop of sugar syrup. So lovely…
• dainty fruit tartlets with a pastry case: a variety of fruits and cream in an excellent gluten free pastry case (I didn’t ask whether they’d used a Genius recipe for the pastry – I wish I’d asked!)
• and tiny chocolate Ondulay cakes. I don’t know what an Ondulay cake is, in technical terms, but who cares? This was an outrageously rich, dense mouthful of chocolate cake.

Delectable. Amazing. And gluten free. So it can be done…

Based on our experience yesterday, Claridge’s offer a wonderful afternoon tea: with champagne or without, it’s going to be an experience to savour. So if you ever want to treat yourself to afternoon tea at a prestigious London hotel (or even treat someone else – but make sure you go as well) this is the one to go for.

Naturally, this will have to be as a very special treat – Claridge’s isn’t cheap. But it will be worth it. Just be sure to tell them in advance that you’re gluten free.

And, to seal my (unrequited) love affair with Claridge’s: I begged for one of the leftover gluten free pastries to take home for my coeliac daughter, who was, of course, at school in Cheshire, eating a baked potato for her school dinner, as she does every day, not in central London drinking champagne (the things I have to do for her!)

The lovely Claridge’s staff provided a dozen.

That’s the way to win an admirer for life.

(For any of you not from the UK: Claridges is an extremely upmarket smart hotel in Mayfair).

I’m guessing: not hard at all! I certainly wasn’t going to decline the invitation (see right) from Genius to meet them there for afternoon tea – I was only too pleased to be invited, so I set off from the frozen north yesterday to join them in London.

And what a glamorous event it was… This was partly a first birthday party for Genius, so we were greeted with a glass of champagne and set loose to discuss matters gluten free.

Time to chat…

Naturally, I met Lucinda Bruce-Gardyne, whose brainchild Genius is; like me, and others there, she has children with allergies; but we aren’t all professionally trained chefs impelled to make a difference by devising a ground-breaking new bread. Yay, Lucinda!

Coeliac UK were well represented by Anne Maloney (Corporate Partnerships Officer) and Norma McGough (Head of Diet and Health), and with them I discussed CD and teenagers attitudes to food and risk; the cost differential of gluten free products over normal products, and the difficulty this adds if you’re a low-income family on benefits; and the influence of family medical history (other coeliacs in the family, diabetes, psoriasis etc) over environmental impact (breastfeeding, for example, is recommended). If you’re newly diagnosed – or even if you’re not! – Coeliac UK are an excellent resource.

I met Liz and John from Coeliac London, who identify and review restaurants in London that cater well for those eating gluten free. They’d both brought iPads, to the envy of the rest of us Brits there, to show us their website and Facebook pages (do search for them on Facebook) – and they’re working on an application for finding suitable restaurants. We discussed the difficulties of quality control over restaurant reviews, and the success they’re having with their Facebook pages.

Liz had a quick look at this blog on her iPad and instantly recognised FlorisFoods goodies from yesterday’s post. FlorisFoods catered for her birthday party recently, together with Sweet Cheeks (new to me, but I’m so checking it out based on Liz’ pictures). Gluten free is a small world!

I was delighted to sit next to Caz, the Gluten Free Foodie during afternoon tea. If you’re a regular reader, you’ll remember I mentioned her blog a while back; she writes about fine dining gluten free in London – do check her blog out. She told us how she’d urged her local pub to get in some gluten free beers, and how astonished the publican was by the response: people flocked to the pub from miles around, and drank the gluten free beers dry in 3 days.

Caz is clearly quite a campaigner, as she’d also tried to persuade Pizza Express that it wouldn’t be too difficult to keep some frozen gluten free pizza bases in stock, with a dedicated pan to cook them in (to avoid contamination) – no luck yet, but I’d be happy to join with her in a campaign…

There were many more fascinating people with great stories to tell, from journalists, corporates, agencies and bloggers. But it has to be said that the highlight of the afternoon was the food.

Afternoon tea: a very English tradition

Genius bread was used to make the daintiest of English sandwiches (yes, including cucumber and excluding crusts), and there were also elegantly presented gluten free scones with Devonshire clotted cream and strawberry preserve, made by Genius. These were excellent. Our table agreed that we all loved a decent scone, and these were fabulous.

We urged Lucinda to put them into production, but this isn’t nearly as easy as you’d think, if – like me – you don’t have experience in the large-scale production of food. And there are the issues of delivering the food fresh; scones, of course, being best within hours of baking. So: no promises from Genius on the scones yet, but I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed.

Or – here’s a thought – sell the flour mix with a recipe, so we can make our own…

Genius, in case you haven’t come across it yet, is a gluten free fresh bread available in all 5 major supermarkets across England, in white and brown. And it is very good indeed. We were lucky enough to taste an early version of Genius rolls, which are very good – and very large! Sadly, the bread isn’t on the prescribables list yet, but if you can find it in your local supermarket, do try it.

This, of course, is Coeliac Awareness week here in the UK, and the message this week is Free For Tea?

Afternoon tea at Claridges: what a way both to celebrate the first birthday of a new product, and to raise awareness of coeliac disease.

Happy Birthday, Genius!

You might find Caz’ blog very useful. It’s called the Gluten Free Foodie, and documents places (mostly) in London where Caz has eaten.

There’s a coeliac-friendly scorecard below each post. I haven’t found one that scores 10/10 yet, though it looks as though Gordon Ramsey did pretty well with 9.5/10!

The sidebar shows the categories both by location and by type of food, which seems like an excellent idea. Caz has only been documenting restaurant experiences since last July, so there are quite a few restaurants that haven’t been covered yet, but this is a great idea, and one that is bound to be helpful to those of us from out-of-town. It’s always difficult to know where to find somewhere suitable in a new town, and it’s great to be able to rely on someone who knows the issues involved…

Next time I take my daughter to London, we’ll know where to start. Sadly, it won’t be Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons (lucky, lucky Caz) – but gluten free pizza at Hell Pizza sounds ideal, even if it is totally the wrong side of London.

1. Cumberwell Park Golf Club

This is where the party was held: about 100 people for a black tie & mask dinner. The children were invited, and found the whole formal dressing and mask thing very exciting. We’d told the club in advance that there would be a coeliac in our group, and introduced ourselves to the manager on arrival, so that the team knew who we were – and they did a great job of ensuring that our daughter’s meal was virtually indistinguishable from everyone else’s.

We started with some tasty nibbles: hummous on tiny toasts, olives and breadsticks. She was provided with her own plate of hummous on gluten free toast (no breadsticks, but that was fine), and her own dish of olives (exactly the same, just in a dedicated dish), to avoid crumb transfer. Later, the manager discreetly came over and told us that both main course choices on the menu that evening were gluten free – so she chose a Thai curry. And then – still very discreetly – we were told that although the chocolate brownie was not OK, the lemon meringue roulade was fine, because they’d used cornflour.

Praise is due to the Cumberwell Park Golf Club, because not only did they cater well for her, they did it discreetly and without fuss, so that there was no embarrassment involved. Hurrah!

2. The Garden Room Bed & Breakfast

And this is where we stayed: delightful self-contained en-suite studio accommodation in a small village outside Bath. If I said it was in a garden – or even a smallholding – that wouldn’t be too far wrong. It was lovely: friendly, welcoming, clean, and comfortable, and plenty big enough for the five of us. It was even stocked with some films for us to watch. We were completely self-contained, as there was a small kitchen area so we could prepare breakfast for ourselves. And this is, of course, the benefit for people who need to be gluten free: we could manage the diet without embarrassment or difficulty.

What a breakfast they’d provided: a range of cereals, fruit, croissants, toast, butter and preserves, eggs, bacon and sausages, fruit juices and milk. We don’t all eat meat, but those that do had a wonderful breakfast – and the meat was from their own pigs. Usually the eggs are from their chickens, but the chickens aren’t laying at the moment.

Our hosts didn’t know we had a coeliac in the family, but because they provided a small cooker, we could cook her gluten free pain au chocolat and bread at will – and she enjoyed the rest of the breakfast. (Not the meat – and I didn’t ask whether the sausages were gluten free).

It was fab. If you’re planning on visiting the Bath area, I can recommend this as a place to stay.

We drove south, and spent a few days visiting relatives – which was lovely – but then had a hideous journey home. All motorways were blocked. Eventually, we headed cross-country only to find that our last remaining route was also blocked, so we decided to take a break and hope that the roads would be clearer in a couple of hours.

So, not expecting much, we pulled off the country roads at Bicester, and trekked into the Bicester Retail Village. This was due to close for the night in a couple of hours, so we really weren’t optimistic, and there wasn’t a lot of choice.

A typical distress purchase, in fact.

However – and you knew this was going to end up well, didn’t you? – we walked into Carluccio’s. We’ve not been there before, though we know of it, of course: it’s an Italian foodshop with a cafe attached, isn’t it?

Turns out to be rather more than that.

Could they feed us? Yes. Even though one of us was a coeliac? Yes – tell your waitress.

So we sat, and did the usual picking out of items that might possibly be acceptable, only to discover a note that said they had a dedicated gluten free menu. Could we see that?

Oh the joy.

3 starters; 4 salads; 6 different pasta dishes (yes – pasta!); 2 meat-based dishes; and 6 side dishes.

Such a delight to go somewhere where my daughter has a choice – and more than a choice of salad, salmon or baked potato. And the staff were delightful: helpful when we needed it, and sincerely apologetic when the children’s choice of dessert wasn’t available.

We loved it. All five of us chose a different pasta dish; my coeliac daughter chose a simple tomato and basil one – gluten free. Perhaps next time she’ll choose something more adventurous now they’ve earned her trust.

Because we’ll be back. Not only as part of our north-south travels – because Bicester is ideally placed halfway – but also to Carluccio’s other branches. There’s one in the Trafford Centre…

The only thing I’d suggest for improvement is that they develop a gluten free dessert menu as well, as the current dessert menu isn’t clearly marked up for GF or not.

If you’d like to know more, to download the gluten free menu, or to find out if there’s a Carluccio’s near you, visit the Carluccio’s website.