Gluten-free accommodating restaurant recommendations

Eating out is one of the hardest things to cope with, when you have coeliac disease or any other type of food allergy/intolerance. After a lot of painful trial and error, here is a list of recommended restaurants which are pretty much nation-wide which accommodate well for gluten-free food.

1. Døgnvill burger

• http://www.dognvillburger.no/
• We eat here with many allergies and intolerances (coeliac disease, milk-protein allergy, soya intolerance, onion intolerance and garlic intolerance). They were amazing! They could make pretty much any meal on the menu gluten-free. Their chips are sometimes cooked in the same fryer as the non-gluten free onion rings, but they instead cooked them in the sweet potato fryer which is gluten free! They also had vegan and gluten-free meals, and GLUTEN FREE VEGAN DESERTS which I have never found before! They tasted amazing and we got the desert on the house as we were out on a birthday celebration :-)

2. Egon

• https://www.egon.no/
• https://www.egon.no/menyen
• Egon is the typical family restaurant in Norway, for young and older people! They are extremely accommodating. Whilst their chips contain traces of gluten as they are fryed in the same fryer as the onion rings, they will replace them with beautiful local boiled potatoes with oil and seasoning if you ask. They have wonderful milk-free and gluten-free burger buns (note that their regular non gluten free burger buns contain milk). You can have naturally gluten-free meals such as fish or chicken, or you can make a meal gluten free e.g. the burgers. They also have gluten free pizza! Check out their really helpful interactive menu online (https://www.egon.no/menyen - this is also the second link above) and select 'Allergier'. Then you tick off which allergies you have and it provides you with the meals you can eat!

3. TGI Friday's

• https://fridays.no/allergener_produkter/
• https://fridays.no/matallergi/
• https://www.tgifridays.com/
• As with any restaurant, their menu might differ slightly from restaurant to restaurant/country to country but overall TGI Friday's is a good place to eat, especially if you have smaller children. Although their menu is not as varied as the other two restaurants mentioned above, they are still highly accommodating and their food tastes great! I recommend the burgers (but that's just my opinion)! 

4. McDonalds

• https://www.mcdonalds.com/no/nb-no.html
• https://www.mcdonalds.no/content/dam/Norway/menu/dokumenter/Allergitabell.pdf
• Ok, so maybe not the most healthy choice, but McDonald's in Norway are very accommodating. Their chips are gluten-free, and their burgers have gluten-free burger buns. The chefs also change their gloves and hats to minimize contamination. Even though this might not be the case everywhere, it certainly is for a lot of areas. It is also easily accessible and cheap.

5. Pizzabakeren

• https://www.pizzabakeren.no/?gclid=CjwKCAiApdPRBRAdEiwA84bo30CKhtw-pMbocqqHP9AjQAC5f66j7-QksEvdovd8aeyylqAaU3e9kxoCS3AQAvD_BwE
• https://www.pizzabakeren.no/menu.php?id=12
• If you like pizza, this is the place to go! Despite only having the gluten-free pizza in one size, here they are very acommodating and adhere to all of your needs. They can make any of their pizzas gluten-free. Again, the chefs change aprons, hats and gloves and have a seperate area for the gluten-free pizzas. They come in seperate boxes so they do not touch other gluten-containing pizzas. Of course, if you are severely reactive, I would be careful as all of the pizzas are in close proximity of each other. However, if you can tolerate traces of gluten, 'spor av' - in Norwegian, you should be ok!

Gluten free shop recipes

Here are some products and recipes by some shops regarding their gluten free selection of products. By using their recipes, I find it is easier to cook the food better in the way it should be, but some of the recipes are a bit hard. It is all subjective, so I hope you find some you find useful! Some of the shop's non-gluten free recipes can be very easily transformed into being gluten free, so I recommend looking at these too.


REMA 1000: 

• Gluten free products and recipes (at bottom of page): https://www.rema.no/uten/
• Non-gluten free recipes: https://www.rema.no/oppskrifter

KIWI:

• Non-gluten free recipes: https://kiwi.no/Oppskrifter1/#/Oppskrifter

HELGØ MENY:

• Gluten-free products for fresh bread: https://meny.no/Tema/Allergi/Nyhet---ferskt-og-glutenfri/
• Gluten-free recipes: https://meny.no/Tema/Allergi/5-glutenfrie-retter-du-vil-elske/
• Non-gluten free recipes: https://meny.no/oppskrifter/

COOP

• Gluten-free bread recipes: https://coop.no/mega/bakeriet/herlig-glutenfri-bakst/
• Non-gluten free recipes: https://oppskrifter.coop.no/

Shop and product recommendations

It can be difficult finding a normal supermarket which sells 'the basics', basically everything you need. This is especially hard if you have recently moved here from another country, are visiting or do not speak Norwegian. Either way, it is hard. Even though Norway is one of the best countries that we have been in for gluten free food (in my opinion, of course), not all shops are equally accommodating. Here I have compiled a list of the in my opinion for gluten free food at REMA 1000.

1. REMA 1000

• Most towns have a REMA 1000, but for me these have by far the best products

• The products are mainly their own products that they make themselves

• Most of them are organic

• Decent prices

• Product recommendations:

1. Baguette - these are wholemeal and taste exactly the same as normal baguettes. They are of a large size and taste amazing! They are sold individually (about 25kr per baguette)

• Pasta - this tastes amazing! With or without oil it does not stick together or go gloopy. There is no funny aftertaste and they are of a good price. If you are looking for tagliatele, I recommend the gluten free tagliatele sold in Helgø Meny or Kiwi. 

• Individual porridge sachets - This is a decently priced really cute single sachet of porridge - perfect for travelling and only requires water, no milk! They also sell them with dried fruit. Their larger bags are a bit more expensive, so if you are going for a large bag of porridge oats for regular use, I recommend Axa Bjørn glutenfrie havregryn which is also sold at REMA 1000

• Noodles - I find REMA 1000 has the largest selection of noodles compared to the other shops. There is one type which is gluten-free called Santa Maria Risnudler. They are made out of rice and cook very quickly. A very easy alternative to pasta!

• Gravy - this can be bought in any shop, but I recommend the TORO brunsaus which is gluten and milk free. It tastes brilliant and there is no taste difference between this and non gluten-free gravy!

• Chocolate packet mix cake - TORO sjokoladekake langpanne. This product is the simplest packet cake mix in the world (in my opinion)! It is gluten free as it uses gluten free wheat starch (less than 20 parts gluten per million - so gluten free) and it is milk free. All you do is add water and oil/melted butter! It cooks quickly and tastes amazing!

NB! For frozen bread and fresh bread, I recommend KIWI and HELGØ MENY. For cakes (frozen and unfrozen) cake/biscuit dough, I recommend HELGØ MENY and COOP MEGA.