Awesome Gluten Free Trip: Anguilla

[Rob S.]

I travel quite a bit.  With Celiac, I have an obviously high sensitivity to gluten. One place to which you can travel without worry: the island of Anguilla. I did not have one problem the whole trip.

Anguilla is an overseas territory of the UK. It is just north of St. Maarten.

Activity wise, the beach and water sports are the only thing on the menu. The island is devoid of any shopping. In fact, the middle of the island is not much to look at it. The water, the beaches and the coast are to die for, but this is about food. Not only is the food outstanding, but every restaurant except one was on the water.

Every single place we went was aware of and accommodating to providing a gluten free meal and each place was better than the last. The food was truly amazing.

We stayed at Zemi Beach Resort.   https://www.zemibeach.com/  I barely had to remind the staff. The breakfast had various options. The eggs, bacon, sausage, omelette station were all gluten free.  In addition, we ate 2 meals at the resort. One night, I had an amazing Cornish Hen and my wife had Red Snapper. It came with a Vegetable Soup Puree. We also enjoyed a gluten free brownie with raspberry sherbet.

The best meal we ate outside of the resort was Da Vida. It was as good as any top restaurant I have ever eaten at any where. We shared appetizers of Ahi Tuna Tartar and Lobster Spring Roll.  I had the Seared Chinese Spiced Chicken with a pineapple liqueur sauce....even that was gluten free.  http://davidaanguilla.com/restaurant/

Another great place was Straw Hat. We had the grilled simple shrimp with coconut rice and Seared Ahi Tuna.  http://www.strawhat.com/

At both places, the service was also excellent.

We had a very good meal at Dolce Vita. The chef is gluten free. With both had penne pasta with different sauces. The gluten free pasta is of course made in completely dedicated cookware.

If you are adventurous, there were two local places we tried: Falcon's Nest and Ken's BBQ.

Falcon's Nest is a collection of plywood shelters over picnic tables in the Scilly Cay Harbor, where many local fishing boats work out of.  We both had the grilled lobster. It cam right off the boat on to our plats, stopping only at the grill. It was amazing.

Ken's BBQ is on "Th Strip", a hodge podge of seemingly home made sturctures where Anguillans make a varierty of food. We were the only tourists. We ate at Ken's BBQ. Turns out Ken has had a BBQ joint for over 20 years. Everything was $5: half a chicken, slab of ribs or shredded pork. You can;t go wrong with any of them.  We had the ribs and chicken, then went back for a combo meal. The fries are the only thing in the fryer and tested gluten free. 

The people of Anguilla are very friendly. Crime is not a concern.  It's an island, so it is not cheap.

If you want a worry free trip with great beaches, this is it.

[kareng]

Wow!  Thanks for this write up!

 

[Rob S.]

I thought I would post a few pics

The first pic was from Falcon's Nest. This one is from Straw Hat.