Oslo is a really easy city to eat gluten free. They are wonderful about labeling things in menus and we even noticed gluten free products in the train stations being advertised.
We stayed in a Scandic Byporten hotel, partly because we know they offer wonderful buffet breakfasts. Kay was really looking forward to eating salmon tartare. But not only did they have fresh fruits, veggies and meat for me, they also had gluten free bread and even gluten free knekkebrød (crisp bread/crackers).
Knowing that eggs are bad, I avoided those completely and filled up instead on bread, knekkebrød, salmon, beans, veggies, cheese and fruit. They also had wonderful smoothies, fresh pressed juice, and coffee. On the last day I even had some of their gluten free muesli, which surprised me. I felt very well taken care of! The breakfast of the hotel was actually at one of the Egon restaurants in Oslo, the one next to the train station obviously. They had a partnership with the hotel to let guests eat there and since I had read about them in my gluten-free research, they were already on my list for dinner places.They didn’t offer so many gluten free options at dinner. The gluten-free menu was only in Norwegian, but it wasn’t too hard to follow along with the English menu. My pizza was fine, but maybe a little boring. I was really stuffed in the end though. We had an appetiser and it was just SO much food in the end.The next night we thought about just going back to Egon Restaurant again because it was insanely convenient to just pop down from the hotel there, but we thought maybe it is a bit lame to eat all our meals including breakfast at our hotel restaurant basically.
Sure, we eat a bit more constricted thanks to my diet, but we have never been the type to eat all the meals at one spot night after night. Kay didn’t like any of the non-Norwegian options I’d found in my gluten-free research, so he found a burger place we could try, but when we got there, we found that it was definitely closed and looked like it was still under construction.
Folks, this has happened to us a lot lately in our search for gluten free food! But… but… we had also passed a Brazilian churrascaria. We agreed to check out the burger place, but see if the churrascaria had room if the burger place was closed.
BEST. DECISION. EVER.
We didn’t realise quite when we sat down, but outside of Brazil, this is the best churrascaria that either of us have been to… and that’s saying something coming from the Brazilian himself.
We started out with delicious pão de queijo cheese breads which, score, were naturally gluten free. I kept asking about gluten free things, but the buffet even had gluten free signs on all the dishes everywhere and with options like feijoada, farofa and more, lots of things were already gluten free by natural. Brazil is just amazing!
The meat was also mouth-wateringly amazing.
They also made a mean caipirinha. Kay was really afraid about the costs of alcohol because Norway has notoriously expensive alcohol and their cost of living is on par with Zurich, but they worked out to 15CHF a piece, which is honestly pretty fair. Back home, you can easily pay 20-25CHF for one of these drinks.
The only thing I couldn’t really partake in was Kay’s dessert, which was a chocolate mousse with normal flour somewhere in there. I’m sure I could have ordered something gluten free, but to be honest, I was SO stuffed from all the meat by that point, I did not have room.
We both left, so, so full. And even with the drinks, our meals only came out to around 80CHF per person, which in Zurich is also pretty darn fair, especially considering all the high quality cuts of meat we ate, the unlimited buffet food and the drinks and dessert.
I can only recommend this place for everyone, even if it’s not “Norwegian” food, we couldn’t stop thanking ourselves that the burger place was closed and we made it here instead of going to the Egon Restaurant again.
That breakfast buffet looks amazing!
I’m sure you would have loved it! 🙂