Anello's Cafe , Portsmouth, New Hampshire

[converge]

This place is AWESOME. Deli sandwiches, prepared foods, and deserts in a 100% gluten free environment.

A bit on the pricey side but totally worth it.

YUM!

[Lombardi25]

I finally made it to Anello's today, and wow, (sorry but long novelized review and other rambling upcoming.) Also if you live in Southern ME, coastal NH or North Shore MA, read my other posts which have a wealth of information and reviews on area gluten-free stuff! And feel free to contact me if you have any questions and are in the area I'm always glad to help, one year this month gluten-free and I've been a gluten-free detective in the region lol :-)

I had ate some of their stuff like their breadsticks and rolls etc. when visiting My Low Carbed Life down in Danvers, MA, but never made it up to their old bakery in Wells, so when I heard that they were moving to Portsmouth back in February I was psyched. I live in Seabrook though and I wasn't sure what their hours were (they were only late morning to early afternoon up in Wells) so I hadn't made it there yet. So woke up and hit it up today and I ended up spending $50 on stuff haha.

I got two sandwhiches on their Foccacia (or whatever it's called) roll, just some Ham, Pastrami, Salami etc., and had one for dinner tonight, it was delicious, will eat the other for dinner tomorrow probably. Also had a Italian breakfast sandwhich when I was there, it was so cool to be eating like normal, easy made, deli food, I haven't done that in sooooooo long.

I also had them throw me together a pizza but not cook it, I took it home and froze it so I'll see how that turns out. I make my own pizzas with crusts cause most of the frozen ones I've tried suck, but I'm excited to see how this is.

I got some Tarimasu for Easter desert at my family's get together tomorrow too, so I'll see how that comes out, but I got this chocolate chip cookie/dough bar thing and it was frigging amazing, had it after dinner tonight. Kinda pigged out today, but was just too excited to try everything.

Anyways, just rambling here, but for anyone whose interested they still don't have hours or menu online, but they are open Wednesday-Monday 9-5 (I think and then 10-5 on Saturday) and then closed on Tuesdays. No delivery yet, but they said they are working on possibly offering this soon. Their menu is pretty varied, mostly sandwhiches, panani's, deserts, flatbreads, quiches, and different types of salads (like potato salad, etc.) oh and they also had shepard's pie and veggie lasagna (I like regular ole lasagna but at least they are trying with pasta stuff) and chicken parmasagne (sorry for the awful spelling, it's late too lazy to look it up haha.) I wish they had more pasta dishes you could take home, I'm Italian and grew up on pasta before finding out about Celiacs last year, but oh well I'll take what they have.

Back to the menu, typically they have most of the normal stuff available on the menu, but they make different stuff every day, so there are things not on the menu that are available on a day to day and holiday basis and things on the menu that may not be available every day, so you gotta call or stop and see waht they have. For example they do muffins, but today they were doing cupcakes, and no muffins (someone came in and asked so that's just a good example.) Pretty much cook's discretion.

Oh, lastly, it's not a restaurant, which I was confused about before visting. They have maybe two small tables, but it's kinda tiny, kinda size of a small trolly but it's in an actual building, I'm guessing most of the space is their kitchen for cooking in the back, so don't plan on eating a nice meal or what not, unless you just want to chill have a coffee and quick breakfast or lunch.

I'll wrap it up by saying I'm planning to make more trips there to stock up on sandwhiches and pizza and deserts, the pepole were extremely nice and helpful, and it's great to see Portsmouth with yet ANOTHER gluten-free option (I've posted before but Popovers on the Square can do gluten-free sandwhiches too, and the Portsmouth Health Food store supposedly has a ton of stuff, but I haven't visited yet.) I have found a bunch of places like Hampton Health Food Store, Philbricks, etc. for grocery stuff, but my "go to" place now to get all my gluten-free stuff is Whole Foods in North Andover, it has EVERYTHING I usually go to four stores for lol, so it's worth the trip every couple weeks.

Thanks for posting about this Converge! It sounds like they are off to a great start in Portsmouth business wise, so things are looking up for us New England Celiacs lol.

Cya!

[NicoleAJ]

Anello's hours are limited 11-5 and I believe closed on Monday or Tuesday? However, if you can get there when they are open, it is totally awesome! It's such a relief to walk into a place and not have to watch out for cross contamination or ask whether something is safe. I was visiting family in York Beach, ME and went here twice to stock up on a ton of food so that I wouldn't have to cook for most of Labor day weekend. The pastrami and turkey sandwiches on foccaccia rolls are absolutely fantastic--even when not heated up, which I found surprising considering the usual texture of gluten-free breads. My husband really loved his pannini as well. Also, their gluten-free cannoli was fantastic and creamy. Their pumpkin puffs were delicious. One of the days that I went in, I got a chicken pot pie to toss in the oven at home, and it was so utterly amazing that I'm going to make it myself at home time and time again--if you type anello's gluten free into hulu.com, there are several episodes of a show where the owner of Anello's makes different gluten-free meals, including the pot pie. The whoopie pies were good, though not as good as the gluteny ones my grandma used to make. The carrot cake was also quite good. The chicken parmesan was fine--though I like my own sauce and chicken parm better. They had a few salads that were really good. The mac and cheese was pretty tasty. I even bought prepared chicken tenders to bring on the plane with me back to California so that I didn't have to cook for the plane--they were good but messy, as the crumbs get everywhere.

I literally bought all of the bags of gluten free flour mix that they had on the shelves and some gluten free bread crumbs. I thought her price on flour and xanthan gum was really reasonable, especially considering the prices I pay in California. She also said that she'd ship mixes and flour and that she'd do a discount for bulk shipments, so I'm definitely going to take her up on that in the future. With all of the food and flours listed above, I probably spent about $100.

My husband marveled that a pannini at Anello's filled with tons of meat and cheese cost him about $7.50 whereas a disgusting and empty sandwich at Midway airport during our layover was $2 more.

If you are ever in the Portsmouth area, you must try it. I really hope that they stay in business for years to come because I would love to have a gluten-free place to eat every time I'm in York--it was a total treat!