Until this day, I do remember when I went to Jamie Oliver's Italian restaurant at the Jumeirah Beach Hotel in Dubai. I would highly recommend it if he hadn't moved on since then. Beautiful ambiente, staff extremely well trained, professional advice about what, from the menu, could be done gluten free. For me, it was the incarnation of how flawless a professional gluten free kitchen could be. His crispy french fries, instead of bread, were legend!
The hotel group is so special to me because that's where I learned to balance a plate in such a way that nothing falls off. It is right opposite of the university campus where I studied culinary arts. It is also so dear to me because of Peter Flieger. The former legendary pastry chef gave me a two thumbs up for my gluten free career and the best advice ever: to not follow the path of classic bakery, but rather approach it with a fresh, uninhibited spirit.
We were trained at that hotel with ice cubes on slippery porcelain and our tears were falling down on the plate as well as on the ice cubes, melting them away.
Choosing the right restaurant
I also remember the 5-Star next door where we booked a five o'clock tea… ehhanced from our own products! We paid a fortune for what we had already paid a fortune for: through careful labor and expensive ingredients in our own bakery – just for the sake of the experience to now go back to a beautiful place and enjoy delicious little fruit tarts, salmon sandwiches and scones with honey and homemade jam – delicacies they had made from our own breads, rolls or tart shells. The chefs at the hotel had given their everything.
It would indeed have been absolutely perfect if we wouldn't have been served with a very fancy etagère, containing gluten cookies while we were waiting for our table. Thank God I asked. Always ask!
It had been 8 years since I had graduated from The Emirates Academy. And since then, I have turned into a kind of a truffle pig in terms of sniffing gluten.
Maybe, you are, too. I once read that to a celiac person, gluten acts like morphine. You pass by and you want it badly. I could sign up on that one!
That's why I want each of my GF products to be that good that they overrule the crave!