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Eating gluten-free In Slovakia?

oceanmom

By oceanmom
in Traveling with Celiac Disease

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oceanmom Newbie
oceanmom
Posted

I will be traveling to Slokia in July. Has anyone traveled there and eaten gluten-free? Any tips of what to avoid? I have a Slovakian restaurant card. Thank you!

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Mango04 Enthusiast
Mango04
Posted

I will be traveling to Slokia in July. Has anyone traveled there and eaten gluten-free? Any tips of what to avoid? I have a Slovakian restaurant card. Thank you!

I'd recommend trying to find a DM drugstore (they are generally all over Central/Eastern Europe). It has a pretty good selection of gluten-free foods (most things are marked with a crossed out wheat symbol). If you're going to be in Bratislava or another city, there will probably be a Marks and Spencer, which will have a foods section where you can pick up some very well-marked products (though you might have to peel off the Slovak ingredient stickers to read the English labels).

Sorry I can't recommend restaurants, but I'm i the Czech Republic, which is obviously very similar in terms of food and language, so let me know if I can help with anything else.

pawelski Newbie
pawelski
Posted

What part of Slovakia (which city) will you visit?

Knowing it, I'll try to find out some groceries and restaurants list with my celiac mates' ;) help on Polish forum.

Generally I'd recommend "Hypernova" malls in most cities. It's a brand of Dutch huge company called AHOLD (malls and stores) and I'm sure you can find there gluten-free special products.

There you can find a map with particular stores through whole the country.

Open Original Shared Link

There is just one thing to confirm:

I apologise in advance for my suspiciousness :) however there is very common confusion for not-european people to mix up Slovakia and Slovenia (two completely different countries with no boundary between even).

  • 1 year later...
happilyfree Newbie
happilyfree
Posted

Hi - how was your trip to Slovakia with regard to eating gluten-free? I am going there for 18 days soon so if you have any recommendations or tips I would greatly appreciate it. Also spending 3 days in Prague and 5 in Lviv, Ukraine! Thnaks!

sa1937 Community Regular
sa1937
Posted

Hi - how was your trip to Slovakia with regard to eating gluten-free? I am going there for 18 days soon so if you have any recommendations or tips I would greatly appreciate it. Also spending 3 days in Prague and 5 in Lviv, Ukraine! Thnaks!

Welcome! Since this is a rather old thread, I'm not sure if the original posters still read messages on the forum. Hopefully someone will give you some recommendations.

love2travel Mentor
love2travel
Posted

Hi - how was your trip to Slovakia with regard to eating gluten-free? I am going there for 18 days soon so if you have any recommendations or tips I would greatly appreciate it. Also spending 3 days in Prague and 5 in Lviv, Ukraine! Thnaks!

My husband and I travel regularly to our house in Croatia and spend time in neighbouring countries. Though I have not been in Slovakia, Czech Republic or the Ukraine since my celiac diagnosis, I was in Croatia, Italy and Slovenia in May. There are similarities.

I took along a lot of snacks from Canada and am glad I did, especially for long flights, airport delays and so on. Once there we stuck mainly to whole foods we found at markets and stores. We picked up groceries and did a lot of grilling at home. However, as it was vacation, we went out a lot, too. The restaurant cards really helped - each time except once I had excellent reactions. It was clear they knew what I was talking about. One place was so good in particular - we had fabulous grilled food then I was even able to have dessert - panna cotta with strawberry sauce. The waiter brought out the panna cotta then whisked it away from me because he suddenly wanted to double check the sauce. The chef decided to do an entirely new dessert with only fresh strawberries just in case. I was pleased.

So, I would recommend going to places where a lot of grilling is done. Harder to do in Prague, though, but not impossible. Higher-end restaurants tend to have better knowledge of celiac disease and its dietary restrictions. Often the sauces are not made with flours/starches but reductions. Grilled fish is popular in those countries, as our grilled vegetables and meats. Sorry that I cannot give you specific restaurant names. This last trip was far easier than I had expected. At one gelateria after showing the restaurant card and requesting that the scoop be cleaned first and the gelato scooped from the front end where nothing else had touched it, the guy went to the back and pulled out the ingredient list and found that there WAS gluten in the gelato. Thank goodness he found out! Some do contain gluten, some do not. I ended up having granitas to be absolutely safe. As my tummy does react to gluten I have to be super extra cautious.

The Schar brand makes a few good gluten-free products. Their bread is horrific, though. The hard breadsticks are good. I actually took along loaves of Udi's bread so at least I could share in the pleasure of yummy European cheeses and meats and am so glad I did. In some of the larger supermarkets there should be a little gluten-free section but far less than in Canada.

I would also translate the words "gluten, wheat, oats, rye, barley" etc. into all languages (Google translate is good) so you can read labels if you purchase groceries.

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