Fresco Cafe Bentleigh - Shame File Member

Quite often I am grateful and excited when I discover a new cafe has opened near my home that has gluten free options on their menu!

El Fresco, across the road.
Don't bother with
this one either.

Cafe Fresco, located on Centre Rd Bentleigh, hasn’t been open very long and I was surprised to see they had a few options for me to try. The cafe across the road, El Fresco (I know, two cafe’s opposite, with almost identical names, either someone screwed up big time or they’re owned by the same people) has literally NOTHING I can eat on their extensive menu, and when I asked the waitress about it, she suggested a flourless chocolate cake. For breakfast.

Anyway, Cafe Fresco had gluten free bread! Fantastic! They also had fruit salad and yogurt, a double win! So I ordered a serve of toast, with fruit salad and yogurt, while my fiance ordered himself a chicken foccacia. Ever determined to be vigilent and remain gluten free, I took the time as the waitress was punching my order into the machine to ask her if the person preparing my food was familiar with gluten free food safety standards.

I got a blank expression. So I tried again.

‘I have coeliacs disease, so even eating a breadcrumbs worth of gluten is dangerous for me. Can you please ask that whoever is making my food be careful that it doesn’t come into contact with any surface or tool that has handled products containing gluten?’ The woman smiled, and assured me she’d let them know to be careful, so I sat down to enjoy what was a delicious cafe latte.

Ten minutes later out comes my toast with fresh butter ad jam, and some delicious looking fruit salad with yogurt. There was just one problem: powdered sugar.

It’s through trial and error I’ve come to realise that gluten is an evil little bugger determined to sneak into everything I eat and make me sick. Cheap powdered sugar is one of those items I have encountered before with bad consequences so when I saw it on my fruit my stomach dropped. My partner, who is very supportive, called the waiter over and asked the ominous question. ‘Is the powdered sugar gluten free?’

‘I have no idea,’ he replied, and stared at us blankly.

‘So, ummm, are we able to find out?’ another few seconds of silence, before he grabbed the bowl and walked off. Now as a side note, I don’t understand the concept of powdered sugar on fruit salad anyway. In this case I think it was for decoration, but seriously, doesn’t fruit have enough sugar in it already?

Fifteen miutes later we were still waiting. No update on if I was getting my fruit salad back, my toast crusts were discarded on my plate and my fiance had finished his foccacia. We waited, waited some more, and then just as we were about to get up and ask for our money back, the salad was delivered. It was clearly a new bowl of fruit, along with... wait for it... a snarky comment from the waitress WHO TOOK MY ORDER, stating I should have TOLD them my fruit salad needed to be gluten free!

It took all my self control not to ask her if she was on crack. I am sure I explained very clearly my order needed to be gluten free, but apparently I needed to tattoo it to her forehead as well. She is lucky I wasn't premenstrual or it could have escalated quickly, instead I gritted my teeth, apologised for the misunderstanding and went back to my fruit salad.

Fast forward an hour or so later, and I was crying on the couch with a bloated stomach, cramps, and a shocking headache that left me on there all day and night. After all the fuss about the fruit salad, whoever prepared my toast clearly either wasn’t informed, or didn’t care. Cafe Fresco – YOU HAVE BEEN NAMED AND SHAMED!

Now I know the cardinal rule of coeliacs sufferers worldwide is ‘if in doubt, leave it out,’ but enough is enough! Restuarants need to take resposibility and understand that if they’re going to advertise something as gluten free/friendly/etc then IT. MUST. BE. With 1 in every 100 people requiring a gluten free diet, more and more restaurants are missing out on lots of business as friends and families of these people look elsewhere to dine out. Being flexible enough to offer gluten free options also means taking responsibility to ensure the food is, in fact, 100% Gluten Free.

Rant over.