The Gallery Café, Ashbourne, Derbyshire

Right in the middle of Ashbourne town centre, you'll find The Gallery Café house in a lovely, bright & spacious upstairs space. The walls are decorated with beautiful art work from various artists, there are greetings cards and gifts available to purchase too.

The café has twice won Derbyshire's best café awards and it's easy to see why. There's a fantastic menu to choose from, lovely warm soups, delicious and healthy salads, generous sandwiches as well as a brilliamt brunch menu that includes pancakes with bacon and maple syrup or blueberry pancakes with syrup. The menu is clearly marked with GF so it's really easy for coeliacs to order from the menu. 

Apparently they're going to trial a glutenfree version of their pancake dishes soon, which would be great. The café is also a stockist for Friedmans Glutenfree bread so if you choose the soup or sandwich option, you'll be pleased to know it will be served in a great glutenfree roll with delicious homemade potato salad and green salad topped with amaranth.

The staff are all super friendly and offered to adjust the menu for little ones, anything can be served as a half portion and even if it's not on the menu, they suggested simple child friendly sandwich options for us. Mark pointed out the fantastic collection of children's books and crayons that they have available which helped the grown ups enjoy an extra coffee and hot chocolate!

So we enjoyed a child's glutenfree cheese roll, a regular portion of pancakes with bacon and maple syrup, a regular open sandwich with masses of smoked salmon, cream cheese, fresh chives and plenty of fresh salads & I enjoyed a warm beetroot, spinach, goats cheese, walnut and balsamic salad. All of these were absolutely delicious.

Perhaps the best bit of all is the fact that ALL of their freshly baked cakes are gluten free. So we had a free choice of flapjacks, brownie, lemon drizzle, chocolate, orange & almond, chocolate cake, apple and cinnamon freshly baked cakes! Spoilt for choice.

What I love about his café is how spacious it is being arranged over two floors with large tables for a family of four. They are very welcoming as far as children are concerned. Most of all, the food that is offered here is always made freshly to order just for you.

The bread they use is also available for glutenfree customers to order in for themselves to take home, so it's a great way of getting a good quality bread on your doorstep.

We all enjoyed a lovely, leisurely lunch here today. If you visit, I sincerely hope you do too. 

Happy half-term from Ashbourne!