Gluten Free By The Sea

Update: Chambers has now been renamed Restaurant 60, but is still owned and run by chef Graham Ledwith: http://www.chambersandthenotte.com

Well after a rant, helping you find supermarket treasure and even a recipe it’s time to get back to the main focus of Gluten Free by the Sea; Helping you find great quality local gluten free food.  You may remember me mentioning Chambers Restaurant in an earlier Eating Out Gluten Free in Plymouth post, and I’ve been keen to go back to do a full review.  Situated on the Barbican this restaurant offers good quality locally sourced products, and is extremely gluten free friendly.  A Living Social offer presented a good excuse to go back, and we managed to pick up two courses and a glass of wine each for £30.  Chambers are running another Living Social offer in the next couple months so keep an eye out for that.

As we were seated we stated that I was coeliac and the chef came over and ran through the menu with me.  Basically he was more than happy to adapt any of the dishes to be gluten free, other than the obvious ones that were in batter, breadcrumbs or pastry.  He apologised that there’d been a diary mix up and he hadn’t realised a coeliac was visiting, else he would have gone out and got gluten free bread in specially.  I did indeed get gluten free bread on my last visit, and I always think this is a great touch.  Anyway, there was more than enough food to keep me going!  I also asked the key question as to whether the chips were fried with gluten items, and was told mine would be fried in a separate pan as a matter of course.

For starters I went for the leak and potato soup, and my wife went for baked field mushrooms.  The soup was good, but slightly salty for my taste.  The only thing I could find any fault with at all during the meal.  Abby loved her mushrooms and was impressed with the number of vegetarian choices too.

I’d had steak on my previous visit, which was excellent, so I thought I’d go for chicken for the main to try something different.  I was about to order a chicken in a garlic and brandy cream sauce, when I spotted chicken wrapped in Parma ham and stuffed with chorizo and cream cheese on the specials board.  This sounded great but came with bacon mash rather than chips, which also sounded amazing.  However I had my heart set on chips and they kindly let me have the special served with chips instead.  This course was excellent, and was served with a beef jus and champagne drizzle which were both extremely tasty.  The chips were delicious and I loved the presentation.  Abby had a goats cheese Wellington and enjoyed this too.

Abby was too full for dessert, as was I to tell the truth.  But what sort of reviewer would I have been if I didn’t try the dessert for you?  I ordered the “Something Chocolate” which was a cone shaped set mousse, with plenty of raspberry and banana coulis drizzled on the plate.  Apparently all the coulis contain about 4% alcohol!  The dessert was rich and light, and had an amazing chocolate flavour.  I absolutely loved this and had no problems at all in polishing it off.  However, in my haste to demolish it I made a huge error and forgot to take a photo – oops!  Anyway, here is the empty plate to show you how much I enjoyed it 🙂

Overall the food was excellent as was the service.  The chef told us he has a nut allergy so was very appreciative of the needs of someone suffering from an allergy or intolerance.  In fact he had recently successfully catered for someone who was gluten free, dairy free and vegetarian.  With the Living Social voucher this meal was a bargain, but the normal prices are very reasonable for the quality of the food.  If you are based in Plymouth or even visiting, then I can highly recommend paying a visit to Chambers.

Tags: allergy, coeliac, food, gluten free, gluten free diet, gluten free food, independent, intollerance, local, plymouth, restaurant