Gluten-free cuisine: small providers fill a surprisingly large gap in Luxembourg

One gluten-free pancake, please – a phrase that customers don't need to say in Bonnevoie. At Glufree Pancake, everything is gluten-free and there is no cross-contamination. Sandra Tinelli has been running the small restaurant near Luxembourg railway station since June 2024. The 43-year-old, who worked in the hospitality industry for a long time, got the idea from her daughter, who was diagnosed with coeliac disease when she was twelve. "Everything changed back then, " says Tinelli. Visits to restaurants, family meals, even lunchtimes at school became a challenge, because while everything at home was simply replaced with gluten-free alternatives, you're never sure outside your own kitchen. "There's always the fear that something might be contaminated and make you ill, so the question is always: where are we going to eat?" says Tinelli.

The Luxembourger with Italian roots has always wanted to be self-employed, and opening her own restaurant allowed her to create a place where everyone is welcome. "My aim was to develop a recipe that tastes good to everyone and to have a kitchen that nobody has to worry about, hence the relatively small menu." As pancakes are her daughter's favourite food, Tinelli accepted the challenge and set about finding the perfect mix. "I experimented for weeks because I wanted something that was very close to the original. You can now find gluten-free alternatives for many things in the supermarket, but they usually don't taste good or are full of preservatives, " explains the restaurant owner.

The constant extra effort

The biggest challenge: finding a flour producer that offers 100 per cent gluten-free certified goods. "There is no such certification in Luxembourg. The 'Santé' (Ministry of Health, ed.) does carry out checks to ensure that there are no traces of gluten in the kitchen and issues a letter, but this is not an official certificate. It is not for nothing that bakeries such as Chambelland have their own factories in France and Italy. Glufree is too small for that, so I had to use a producer from abroad, " regrets Tinelli. She gets her bread rolls and pastries from a bakery in Belgium, but everything that doesn't contain flour comes from Luxembourg. "We are not a gastronomic restaurant, but I want to offer quality, simple dishes that are fresh and homemade."

A look at the website of ALIG, the Association Luxembourgeoise des Intolérants au Gluten, shows that although there are a few restaurants in the Grand Duchy that offer gluten-free alternatives, it is not clear whether they also exclude cross-contamination. Paul Jeitz from the bakery of the same name in Consdorf also knows how difficult it is to offer gluten-free options when the business itself actually functions "normally". "We've stopped making gluten-free bread, as there's hardly any demand for it and it always means extra work for me. We are also not allowed to cut gluten-free bread in the normal bread slicer, but it's not worth buying a separate machine that is only used every fortnight, " says the baker.