I do feel kind of sorry for restaurants these days. I'm sure it seems like everyone has a problem of some kind. You can't just open a grill, whack a bit of bread on each table and watch the money roll in.
Every Karen and their clan is going to rock up day in, day out claiming to be allergic to everything from dairy to pine nuts to wheat and back - and then there's the vegans, the pesky pescatarians and the Just Generally Awkward. The customer is always right - but has the customer ever been so fussy?
Well it's definitely a good thing that the restaurant trade and the catering industry has become much more attuned to the needs of every customer, not just you lucky sods without any dietary issues, and I can honestly say that on the whole, the range and quality of gluten free food available to me has never been better since I was first medically diagnosed with Coeliac disease after a string of hospital visits and invasive camera tests in 2018.
Read More: We tried a delicious, legally compliant and safe gluten free restaurant and loved it
And when I saw that Leeds' best rated breakfast spot - according to Tripadvisor - Residence 74, in Ireland Wood, offered gluten free menu options, I was elated. I'm definitely going to go try it, I thought.
Checking out the website, I saw gluten free souvlaki and loaded fries, two of my absolute favourites, and I knew that the place was already well regarded for breakfast given its TA rating, so I decided to head down to check it out with a view to making it one of my regular takeaways.
Residence 74 has a varied menu, from fresh seabass to grilled chicken, meat skewers, fries and burgers, and they deliver as well as offer dine-in. Still, there's only three things labelled 'GF' in big blue letters on its menu, and only two I wanted to try - souvlaki and the loaded fries - so I went to order them.
We started with some drinks. Sadly there's no gluten free lager on the menu, so it was a cider for me, while my better half got a deliciously weird marmalade virgin cocktail, an odd but quite good giant fizzy marmalade drink.
It was ordering the food where it all went wrong. I asked, as anyone with medical issues always has to, how the food is prepared, just to check it's not likely to be contaminated. Unfortunately, the waitress told me that the fries are in a shared fryer with all their other food, and the chicken is cooked on the same grill as other food.
Er, hang on. Why does it say 'gluten free' on your menu, then? Shared fryers and grills means gluten containing products will be cooked on the same equipment. It means the food won't be gluten free.
I went inside to take this up with the manager. Yes, the food itself has no gluten ingredients but the food isn't isolated when cooked.
For reference, here is what Coeliac UK says on its website, in a section entitled Gluten Free And The Law: "To label gluten free on your menus you need to be sure that the dishes you are serving contain 20 parts per million (ppm) or less of gluten. The legislation on the labelling of gluten free foods, Regulation (EU) No 828/2014, covers the absence of gluten in food to meet the standard for gluten free and is a separate piece of legislation. The term can only be used for dishes that contain 20ppm or less of gluten and applies to all foods sold in catering establishments and pre-packaged products."
A catering website, Pelican Procurement, backs this up: "The definition of gluten-free is where the presence of gluten is less than 20 parts per million (ppm) in a food product or meal. This level of gluten is considered safe for people with coeliac disease.
"Caterers should take care when using the term gluten-free on menus and websites as the term is legally defined. To claim a food or meal is gluten-free, you must be able to demonstrate and prove that it contains less than 20ppm of gluten."
So this restaurant appeared to be using 'gluten free' labelling despite not isolating the food from gluten. When I queried this, I was told, it's a small kitchen, it's a small business, and so on. Fine, I said, but just... don't label it gluten free if it isn't?
So that's my review. I went, I couldn't safely order the food labelled GF, I left. If I could give zero stars, I would.
The thing is, if someone had a nut allergy, contaminating their food with nuts would be totally unacceptable. The same for fish, or anything else really. Just because I don't drop dead on the spot when I eat gluten does not mean it isn't causing serious, long term issues when I eat it. If I hadn't asked, I could have eaten this food - and why should I have to ask, if it's already labelled? - and could have been seriously ill.
According to Tripadvisor, the food is tasty, satisfying and great value for money. So if you are not coeliac, you'll probably love it. If you have a gluten intolerance, allergy or coeliac, I'm afraid you'll be left disappointed, or worse - despite what the menu says.
LeedsLive has approached Residence74 for a comment.
Residence 74, Otley Old Road, Ireland Wood, Leeds
Order: Nothing ordered, £0.
