Allergy Eating in Sydney

Establishment: Pure Gelato, Croydon Park Cuisine: Gelato and sorbet Allergy information: they offer an amazing range of dairy, egg, nut, gluten and sugar free gelato and sorbet Suggestions: the Passionfruit Sorbet is so smooth and absolutely gorgeous, so much so that even my friends without allergies wiped it out because they all loved it too! Ok, so I'd have to really enjoy something if I'm going to recommend a Gelato place in the dead of Winter, but it can't be helped, this place is amazing! Like most kids growing up with a dairy or egg allergy, the idea of eating ice cream was often something of a dream. My first ever ice cream came from a health food store in Macquarie Shopping Centre back in the 80s. Sadly, I no longer remember what the store was called, but they had a banana soy ice cream, in a tray just like the other regular flavours. Looking back on that now, I remember that making the whole experience even better. It was like getting to go to the store l...

Wonderful surprise discoveries while travelling with allergies! Find #4 - Roly's Fudge, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, UK I cannot thank the UK enough for the lovely foods I was able to eat while I was over there last year. I was genuinely bowled over by the sheer variety of options. Honestly, in terms of food, it really does feel like a whole other world for someone like me and quite frankly, it was a good thing all I did was walk because I would have easily come home a good few kilos heavier! On our second day in London, we went on a bus tour that would take us to Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwick Castle then finish up at Oxford and as a happy literary geek, I was very excited to visit the hometown of the Bard himself. Our first glimpses of the birthplace of Shakespeare. Now, as my brain was filled with Shakespeare while we walked through the house in which he was born, then were able to enjoy a wonderful outdoor performance and lastly visit his schoolhouse and exp...

Establishment: San Churro Chocolateria, various locations Cuisine: Spanish Chocolateria Allergy information: Their growing vegan options are all dairy and egg free and also include some nut free options as well. They also have wheat/gluten free options Suggestions: Anything cookie butter! The filled churros are delightful and I also enjoy the insanely decadent Happy Vegan (though I only recommend if you've not had any sugar for a week!) I do love my churros! For the longest time, San Churro was the only place I could go to with my friends to have something of a safe dessert when eating out in the city. It was also only one of two places in all of Sydney where I knew safe desserts were on offer (and sadly, the other place, Fountain Vegetarian, is now gone. I do miss their lovely vegan Chocolate and vegan Orange cakes).  The classic churros with the dark chocolate dip were a nice option to have after years of going to dessert places with the others where I usually...

Wonderful surprise discoveries while travelling with allergies! Find #3 - Cinnamon Works, Pike Place, Seattle, US I was fortunate enough to get to visit Seattle in September of 2016 and I have to say, travelling along the west coast of the US was so much fun and full of amazing allergy-safe finds.  Living in Australia with allergies is certainly getting easier as each day passes. However, after visiting places like the US, Canada and the UK, you do get a real sense of how different it is in countries with genuinely larger populations and therefore larger populations dealing with dietary restrictions. Just walking through markets, supermarkets and stores presented me with so many more options than I'd ever seen back home and while some of those were clearly catered to specific diets, being 'vegan' or 'free from', often you'd find those allergens not getting included at all in regular items, which is great.  One of the places I did stumble upon whi...

Photo courtesy of my friend, Mench. Cheers for making us stick around Melbourne Central in order to stumble upon this place! Establishment: Cupcake Central, Melbourne Central Cuisine: Cupcake bakery Allergy information: they have vegan, gluten free and nut free flavours, however they warn of possibility of cross-contamination as products with allergens are also prepared on the premises Suggestions: flavours vary daily but if they're available, I would highly recommend the following vegan flavours - Birthday Cake, Chocolate, Snickers and Cookie Butter - amazing! I was unsure whether or not to include this as an Allergy-friendly Travel Eat because I don't live in Melbourne but seeing as it's still in the home country, I'll list it as a local spot while ignoring that it would take me a flight or an 8-10 hour drive to get there! Last September long weekend, my friend and I decided to have an easy few days away in Melbourne and one thing we can always count on w...

Wonderful surprise discoveries while travelling with allergies! Find #2 - Green and Pleasant Tearooms , Bourton-on-the-Water, Cheltenham, UK   I originally posted about this last May, while I was on holiday in the UK, in a blog entitled, 'How living with food allergies can be a most wonderful thing...' and I really meant that title. For all the difficulties that food or any other allergies can cause, the experience teaches you a great deal and it's impossible not to develop an appreciation for so many things, and for all the people who have actively tried to open up different foods for people and allow them to experience something that so many others never have to think twice about. I'm absolutely not saying that people without allergies necessarily take food for granted, but when you're forced to watch out for everything, it gives you a unique opportunity to experience and really savour firsts that others will have long forgotten... and those moments ...

Wonderful surprise discoveries while travelling with allergies! Find #1 - Apfelkern Und Kolibri , Bad Homburg, Germany It's been a long few years since my excellent friend, Colleen, and I finally found this place after getting lost amidst the picturesque maze of houses, just off of Bad Homburg's main shopping street, Louisenstraße. She had looked up whether this beautiful city had any allergy-safe dining fare for my visit and found this quaint looking cafe offering a fully vegan menu.  Thankfully, we eventually found the place (it took a while, Google maps being particularly unhelpful!) and it was easily one of the cutest places I'd ever eaten. The entire menu was vegan, saving me from fear of dairy, egg or seafood, and a quick and very kindly answered query about their Mediterranean Quiche determined that they could create the dish without adding the pine nuts so that covered that final obstacle.  To this day, I am chagrined that I never took a photo of th...

Establishment: Gourmet Cake Express Cuisine: Baked goods Allergy information: They have a wide range of gluten free cakes as well as a selection for special diets such as egg free, dairy free and vegan. Suggestions: The Egg Free Dairy Free Chocolate Cake is moist, jammy and decadent. They have also confirmed it is nut free so that's one for the nut allergies! Straight off the bat, I will not hesitate to say I've been going to these guys for cake since 2012 and once again, I have an excellent workmate to thank for their discovery. In the lead up to one of our team meetings, my workmate, Jaz, sent me an email letting me know that they were looking to get some cake in for my and another teammate's upcoming birthdays (incidentally, my 30th!) and asked me to check out a link to a place called Gourmet Cake Express that had a 'Special Diets' section. If I recall correctly (2012 was a while back now), I clicked the link in disbelief and had a minor freak out befor...

Vale! To those allergy-friendly places that are no longer with us. Post #1 -  WellCo Cafe, Glebe A tribute to the place that served me my first allergy-safe brownie, along with one of the tastiest vegan green salads I've ever had and that became one of my favourite haunts till it had to go - Well Co cafe on Glebe Point Road 🙌 This place was a gem. Sure, it wasn't perfect or polished or slick. The tables and chairs were worn and the interior could be dark and pokey but what did it matter when you and your friends were huddled around a table having a good gab or listening to the jazz bands that used to play by the stairs? Simple, it just didn't. Friends and I could sit there, chatting and nursing our sweet treats and tea for hours. If we ended up on the balcony upstairs, our sojourn was accompanied by a good breeze (if there was one) along with the buzz of traffic down on Glebe Point Road. It was a place you could really sit back and relax in. Of course, t...

Establishment: Gathered Kitchen, Glebe Cuisine: plant based, vegan, cafe Allergy information: all dishes are dairy and egg free, some dishes are also nut free or gluten free Suggestions: the pancake stack and the pain au chocolat – delicieux! Living with allergies, suggestions from family and friends have become a great way to discover new foods or places to eat out, especially in the last decade or so. Don’t get me wrong, Google is a pretty handy way to find articles and sites that guide you to some amazingly allergy friendly finds, but when you have people on your side, looking out for you and thinking about you when they see something delicious that won’t have you running for your epipen or to the hospital, that’s a pretty wonderful thing. In this case, I have to thank my workmate, Morgaine, for suggesting I check out this relatively new place in Glebe. Being vego, she had started frequenting a vegan cafe called Gathered Kitchen and one day at work, she made a passing sugges...