Armathwaite Hall Hotel & Spa

Brilliant service!! Great gluten free food choices and safe for coeliacs!!

Overview: dangerously mislabelled food due to allergen incompetence and dismissal primarily on the chef’s part, lack of proper allergen folders, patronising staff My partner and I were asked if we were ‘there on school holidays?’ by a patronising receptionist when arriving to ask directions for our brasserie lunch booking & she continued to keep tabs on us in a demeaning way by comparison to other guests, as if expecting us to inflict some damage to the place as we looked younger than their usual intake. This down-talking was prevalent in all interactions with staff and we were made to feel unwelcome though we were only there to eat the lunch we’d booked and take in the hotel’s views whilst in the area We checked the menus before booking to ensure there were options to accommodate coeliac requirements -of which there seemed plenty- and ordered the gluten free tandoori chicken burger (which as an individual item was coeliac-friendly and very tasty). This came with an option for fries, but as a side item on the menus, the fries were not labelled gluten free; so we asked the waiter (who besides seeming uneducated on food allergens and the severity of coeliac reactions, delivered amiable, respectful service -the best by far of any staff member we encountered) whether or not the fries were gluten free. He went to ask the chef for us and returned saying the chef assures they are gluten free and additionally they will be cooked in a separate fryer and thus any possible contamination ‘would be cooked off by the fryer’. Which was thankfully a heads up to be extra-vigilant with the food as this is an entirely false claim, and shows the chef has no awareness or respect for food allergens and their severity -and who, worryingly, seems to be the root of the rest of the staff’s allergen knowledge based on their later responses to the issue which mirrored the chef’s. However, due to this repeated assurance that the fries as they are bought into stock were indeed gluten free & cooked in a gluten free fryer, the chef’s comment, though incorrect appeared to have little bearing on the contents of the fries, and so they were ordered as listed as part of the gluten free burger meal. This very quickly was proven to be incorrect, and the assurances false. The heads up to potential incorrect yet repeated labelling of them as gluten free due to the chef’s incompetence reduced the severity of that reaction as only a few were eaten very hesitantly before the early markers of a reaction appeared. We asked for an allergen folder before risking ordering any other gluten free item (since besides the fries, the rest of the meal was truly gluten free), which the waiter seemed confused by and then unable to produce because the brasserie didn’t have one, only the other bar in the far opposite end of the hotel complex did, as far as we were told. We raised the issue of the fries to the waiter who was incredibly apologetic but still somewhat disbelieving as the chef had repeatedly told him they were gluten free and he had no knowledge of his own to stand against the chef. So we then had to explain that gluten is present in many things without it being explicitly labelled on the ingredients as it is present in legally negligent amounts and thus not required to be listed. And that chips are known for this as they are often coated in small amounts of flour to make them crispier and therefore unless explicitly declared gluten free by the supplier and the packaging, are likely to be coated in wheat and that the reaction was proving them unsafe After contending with the chef’s claims again, he eventually believed us to an extent On our exit we mentioned the issue to the aforementioned receptionist to try and ensure it didn’t endanger any other guest. After eventually deciding to believe us, she offered for us to flag it to the duty manager, who repeated the chef’s claims of their being safe and frying off any extra gluten & we had to re-explain the presence of allergens and labelling issues in fries before he resigned to following it up