I was very, very excited to hear Hui Wei have started doing gluten free banana & pineapple fritters – what a treat. Their gluten free offer is going from strength to strength!
We took the boys for a quick tea in the week so we could try them. We chose lychee ice cream with the banana fritters and mango & passion fruit with the pineapple. They were absolutely lovely.
I was looking for a last minute meal on Saturday before a theatre visit, and we ended up getting the last table at Cubana in Leopold Square. The restaurant is above a lively salsa bar. It’s a highly themed, lively place, with loud Latino music and a great atmosphere. We sat down at 5pm, but if it hadn’t been light outside, it could have been late evening!
I had a look at the online menu before I booked and I was very impressed with the number of gluten free options. 27 of the 34 hot tapas and 6 of the 8 cold tapas are gluten free, as well as the paella and most of the side dishes. So we had tonnes to choose from with a wide variety of ingredients.
My kids haven’t eaten much tapas before and really enjoyed being able to pick loads of things to try from the menu. We ordered all sorts: Patatas bravas, Chorizo, Albondegas (meatballs), tomato salad, Serrano ham with goat’s cheese, chicken skewers with cumin and paprika, duck and aubergine skewers.
The tapas were all fabulous, with loads of different flavours. We didn’t have to wait too long for it to come either, considering how busy the place was. The one disappointment was there were only three meatballs, but we just chopped them in half and shared them out.
We also ordered seafood and chorizo paella for two, to share between five of us as a main course. The menu advised a 45 minute wait for this, but it didn’t take that long. We were all very impressed when it came, decorated with lot of mussels, clams and shell-on prawns. And the rice itself was packed with ingredients. It’s the most generous paella I think I’ve ever had in this country. (I’m used to festival paella, where you get rice and a few bits of stuff, so this was amazing!)
Unfortunately, I don’t think it had been cooked in its own serving pan as there were none of the delightful stuck on crispy bits at the bottom, but we still really enjoyed it. And our eyes were clearly bigger than our bellies as even five of us couldn’t polish it off after all the tapas, so we had to take the rest home in a doggy bag! And I’m proud to say we ate it for breakfast the next day!
I’ll definitely go back to Cubana. The food and staff were great, and there are plenty of things left on the menu to try. I’m looking forward to the rosemary and garlic lamb cutlets and the tuna steak with cannellini bean salsa. We might go without the kids next time so we can get tucked into some of the 164 rums and enjoy a bit of the Latino vibe downstairs!
Cubana, Unit 4 Leopold Square, Sheffield S1 2JG
***UPDATE Sep 2026 – Think they use food concessions rather than making their own now, so I’ve no idea if there is still a gluten free offer***
We were looking for somewhere to go for a Sunday lunch with my mother in law, who lives in Broomhill, and Tripadvisor suggested The Doctor’s Orders, which is right next to the Hallamshire hospital on Glossop Road. We’d always thought it was just a student pub, but it has very good reviews on Tripadvisor for food and specifies gluten free, so we decided to give it a whirl.
It’s a fun, themed pub, with medical memorabilia, such as a full height skeleton and old fashioned framed advertisements. It was interesting explaining some of these to the boys!
The kids really enjoyed reading the Staff Prescriptions board and spotting who was serving us. We’re fairly certain Liam R and Rob looked after our table, and very attentive they were, too. They obligingly took my various ingredients questions to the chef and came back with confident answers, which is always reassuring.
There were a few gluten free choices marked on the menu (e.g. steaks, nachos, baked Camembert). Others can be made gluten free, such as the fish and chips (they have a separate fryer, but don’t batter the fish for GF) and the burgers, which can be served with a gluten free bun.
We decided to order a starter portion of nachos to share. I took a photo but it’s not pretty because we’d already started eating, so it won’t do it justice. It was a great big bowl full – plenty for all 5 of us to have a helping, with a generous amount of the cheese, salsa, chillies and chicken toppings.
For mains, my older boy tested out a gluten free burger. He went for the Smokey Swine, which was a monster stack of pork, bacon, pulled pork and cheddar on a pretty good gluten free bun. It came with some great wedge chips and a nicely spiced bbq sauce. A whopping portion, which he thoroughly enjoyed.
I opted for something a bit more Sunday lunchy from the specials menu: a whole ham hock served with creamy apple mash, honey roast carrots and parsnips and a cider jus. It wasn’t marked as GF, but I was informed it was.
I too was presented with a proper Yorkshire portion. I’m not sure anybody really needs to eat a whole ham hock in one meal (and I consider myself a bit of a pig, so that’s saying something). But it did taste divine. The meat just fell apart, and the mash sweetened with apple was fantastic – a very well balanced flavour. The only thing it could have done with is a bit of green veg because it was so rich, but all in all, I really enjoyed it. I’d say the jus was a gravy to be honest, but that’s not a complaint – I like gravy.
We really enjoyed our meal, but were far too stuffed for pudding. Mind you, there didn’t seem to be any gluten free choices on the menu, and I forgot to ask! I did enquire about the Sunday roasts and found out that they have gluten free stuffing, but not gluten free Yorkshire puds.
The Doctor’s Orders, 412 Glossop Road, Sheffield S10 2JD
A couple of weeks ago, I went with a couple of friends to a fab little Indian called Urban Choola on London Road. I didn’t write about it at the time because they were about to close down and move to larger premises.
They have just opened the new restaurant this week on Ecclesall Road in what used to be House of Spice (near Greystones Road and the Co-op).
I don’t know if the menu is changing, but they would do well to keep the cafe vibe, which made it a fun place to go. We all had the Thali (mine was lamb palak – a mild curry with spinach), and my gluten free option came with a big bowl of rice instead of the naan bread. The sides were lovely and had varying levels of spice. One was a black lentil dahl with an earthy flavour, there was a chickpea dish and a potato dish – all delicious and very generous portions.
As with many Indian restaurants, it’s not difficult to get great gluten free food here, as long as you’re happy with a main course – lots of the starters, and of course the breads, are off limits.
We had a great time, and as Urban Choola is BYO, it was also super cheap. They do takeaway as well as eating in. You can book and order online at their website.
Urban Choola, 842 Ecclesall Road, Sheffield S11 8TD
Last Friday was a fantastic evening, spent at Fired Arts, the craft cafe at Banner Cross on Ecclesall Road. A mum friend had booked it out for the evening and about 20 of us spent a few hours painting pots and doing decoupage. The best thing about it was that you can bring your own wine and nip out to any of the local establishments for food during the evening.
So there I was, glueing small bits of paper on cardboard letters with a glass of pinot, when one of my friends came back from the chippy up the road and announced the assortment of gluten free food on their menu. Having to that point had rather low expectations of the evening’s fayre, I pretty much dropped everything and marched up the street with two friends to check it out. And I’m very pleased to report I ended up with a freshly cooked portion of gluten free fish and chips!
Neptune’s is where the old Banner Chippy used to be. The inside has been done out very nicely, with clean white walls and black fish murals. It’s been open a few months under new ownership and the lovely lady behind the counter is also gluten free – hence the effort to provide GF options every day. They even posed for a photo, which was nice, as they were a bit busy.
On offer for coeliacs are fish, chips, calamari, king prawns, fish cake, onion rings, pea fritters, fish fingers and fried halloumi, so plenty to choose from! I went for good old fish and chips, and very lovely they were too. We only had to wait a few minutes for them to be cooked freshly, and it was well worth it. The batter on the fish was the best I’ve had gluten free, and I enjoyed every mouthful.
Well done Neptune’s. I very much hope you’ll keep gluten free on the menu. I’ll be back soon, to try out those pea fritters and onion rings…
Neptune’s
989 Ecclesall Road, S11 8TN