Ratings are out of 100, with 100 being the highest standard and 0 being the lowest
- An Italian restaurant with a pretty Capri-style interior
- Offering big Italian dishes such as pizzas, fresh pasta and their famous tiramisu
- Offers a very limited selection of gluten-free dishes, does not offer GF pasta or pizza but includes a gluten free cheesecake
- Location: London, Shoreditch
This was my first visit to a Big Mamma Group restaurant, being Gloria, and I can’t say I’d happily go again!
When first entering the restaurant, the decor and interior design impressed me immediately. It gave an 70’s Italian-style vibe with a large marble bar and coloured booths. The decorations themselves made me think I was in for a good meal. But unfortunately, I was wrong.
At a first glance on the menu, I realised they do not offer gluten free pizza or pasta which I was very disappointed with as I had seen both of these dishes and they did look amazing! However, I do understand the challenges with making a GF version for each dish so normally it doesn’t effect my view on the restaurant.
But…when properly looking at the menu, I realised there was not much I could actually eat. The menu contained a GL which meant ‘gluten low’ and GIF for dishes that are gluten-intolerant friendly. As the menu at Gloria changes frequently, this may not be as relevant and perhaps the next menu will be more inclusive to us coeliacs. However, for my visit, I could only have the Carpaccio Di Manzo (beef carpaccio with rocket) or an expensive steak meal (I can’t remember the menu exactly and it is no longer online so forgive me if there were other options, but there were definitely not many more).
I was happy to just have a salad and the Carpaccio Di Manzo was between two salad options so I ordered this and made it clear to the waiter that it was for my main and had to be gluten free, which he was fine with. Once the food came, it was served in a large serving plate, and it was a layer of thinly cut raw beef, tiny amount of rocket and a tiny amount of parmesan. As can be seen in the image below.
Now this dish would have been great as a sharer plate with everyone, but as a main, with nothing else than that, I was very shocked. It was definitely partly my fault as I didn’t know exactly what I was ordering, but I did feel like the waiter could have warned me. It did not have much taste, perhaps with another dish it would have made a good pair, but eating this on its own was not pleasant.
If that was the only issue with the restaurant I would be more generous with my review, but the service was overall poor. It took a long time to get our meals, when getting our desserts we weren’t given spoons and the waiter who said he’d get them never returned. And when finally paying, they asked us to pay via the QR code on our phones but the site requested a fee for paying online which they didn’t warn us about, so we ended up paying the bill with the card machine anyway.
Despite this being relatively negative, I want to end on a high note! They offered a GLUTEN FREE cheesecake!! And this cheesecake was delicious, it was so creamy and rich and a very generous slice.
Gloria has been well known on Tik Tok, the famous pasta in a cheese wheel, the tiramisu in a tray that they spoon onto your plate, and just the overall prettiness of the restaurant. I really wanted to like it, it has so much potential and I do hope in the future the menus will have more options for gluten intolerance diets.
When researching the other restaurants in the Big Mamma Group, it seems that some are much better at catering for gluten free diets. This includes Big Love Cafe in Paris and Ave Mario in Covent Garden.
So expect to see a review in the future as I will try Big Mamma Group again despite this review!