Eating gluten-free in Basel

Basel sits on the Rhine, right where Switzerland meets Germany and France. The city is small and easy to explore on foot, and its best-known specialities have one thing in common: almost all of them start with flour.

Gluti offers guidance and is not a medical device. Its information does not replace medical advice.

Can you eat out gluten-free in Basel?

Yes. Basel is international in outlook, and coeliac disease is familiar to many kitchens. There are restaurants that mark gluten-free dishes on the menu. You can walk between the old town in Grossbasel and Kleinbasel across the Rhine, and the tram covers the rest.

Switzerland is not part of the EU, but its rules are similar. In Basel too, restaurants must be able to tell you whether a dish contains gluten. Often a note on the menu simply says that staff can tell you, so asking is expected. What the information does not cover is the same as anywhere: the fryer, the pan, the board the bread is cut on. You have to ask about those yourself.

What should I know about Basel?

The first thing is the prices. Eating out in Basel is expensive, as it is everywhere in Switzerland, and gluten-free bread or pasta often costs extra. The large supermarkets stock gluten-free products, often under their own brands and on a shelf of their own. Go by the label on the packet, not by the shelf alone.

The second thing is the language. In Basel people speak the local Swiss German dialect, but they write and understand standard German. The menu has a few Swiss words: a Gipfeli is a croissant, a Weggli a soft bread roll, and a Wähe is a flat tart on a pastry base, sweet with fruit or savoury with cheese and onions. The base is almost always made from wheat flour.

And the third thing is the border: by tram or train you are quickly in Germany or France, and many people from Basel shop there.

Which Basel dishes contain gluten?

Basel cooking is built on baking, tarts and a soup that says it all:

• Basler Mehlsuppe (Basel flour soup): Flour is roasted dark in butter or fat, then topped up with stock and simmered, often with onions and with grated cheese on top. The flour is the dish. It can only be gluten-free if the kitchen makes it specially with gluten-free flour.
• Zwiebelwähe und Käsewähe (onion tart and cheese tart): A pastry base with a filling of eggs, milk or cream and onions or cheese. The base is made from wheat flour, and flour can go into the filling too.
• Fastenwähe (Lenten pastry): A flat yeast pastry with caraway, cut into a pattern, sold in the weeks before Fasnacht. The dough is made from wheat flour.
• Fasnachtskiechli (carnival fritters): Dough stretched paper-thin, fried in fat and dusted with icing sugar. The dough is made from wheat flour, and the fat is often shared with other baking.
• Basler Läckerli: A firm spiced honey biscuit with almonds, hazelnuts, candied peel and kirsch under a sugar glaze. The dough contains wheat flour. Gluten-free versions exist only where they are explicitly baked that way.
• Basler Brunsli: A Christmas biscuit of ground almonds, sugar, chocolate and egg white, often with cinnamon and kirsch. The classic recipe uses no flour, but some recipes add a little, and it is usually baked alongside other biscuits. Ask about the ingredients and about the bakery.
• Mässmogge: Boiled sugar sweets with a hazelnut cream filling, sold at the autumn fair. Sugar and hazelnuts contain no gluten, but the filling varies from maker to maker. Check the ingredients list or ask at the stall.
• Lachs nach Basler Art (Basel-style salmon): Salmon with onions fried in butter. The fish used to come from the Rhine. It is often dusted with flour before frying, and the onions may be floured too. Ask about both.
• To drink: Wine from the region, apple juice and Most, apple cider, are naturally gluten-free, as are fruit brandies such as kirsch. Beer made from barley or wheat contains gluten unless it says “gluten-free” explicitly. Malt beer and other malt drinks are made from barley malt and contain gluten.

Your best bets are grilled meat, potatoes, salad and vegetables without breading, though ask about the preparation.

What should I watch for at Fasnacht?

Basel’s Fasnacht, its carnival, begins at four in the morning on the Monday after Ash Wednesday with the Morgestraich and lasts three days. The centre is packed, groups march through the lanes with drums and piccolos, and many pubs open before dawn. The Morgestraich comes with flour soup, onion tart and cheese tart, which are exactly the dishes that are off the table for you.

So plan ahead. Eat something beforehand, bring a snack you know is safe, and expect kitchens to have little time for questions during those days. Where tarts and fritters are laid out, there is flour on the counter.

What is different on a trip across the border?

Germany and France follow EU law. Restaurants there must give information on 14 major allergens, including cereals containing gluten, for food sold loose too. This may be a list, a note on the menu or an answer on request, and it does not cover the fryer or the board either.

In Alsace you will be speaking French. “Sans gluten” means gluten-free, and “Je suis cœliaque” means you have coeliac disease. If you buy gluten-free products in Germany or France, know the Swiss customs rules: duty-free allowances apply to some foods, such as meat. Check with customs before you fill the boot.

What do I say in a restaurant?

In Basel you can speak standard German, and “Ich habe Zöliakie” (I have coeliac disease) is understood. English also works in many restaurants. Say what matters: no flour, no breadcrumbs, no ordinary oats, and a separate fryer or pan. And say that even a small amount harms you.

The card to show works in Basel in German or English, printed or on your phone, and it can go into the kitchen as it is. Which questions work in general is in the article What to ask in a restaurant.

How does Gluti help me in Basel?

In Gluti you can see on the map which places in and around Basel are listed. Every place is checked by the Gluti team before it appears. The level tells you how a place works: “100% gluten-free”, “Separate preparation” or “Gluten-free options”. For many places you can also see whether others would eat there again and what they had.

Save a few favourites near where you are staying before your visit, and you will not have to start searching, especially at Fasnacht. If you know a good place in Basel that is missing from Gluti, you can suggest it in the app.

Even checked information is no guarantee, because things can change in a kitchen. So ask every time anyway. The background on fryers, pizza ovens and toasters is in the article on cross-contamination, and what to think about for the journey is in the guide to travelling gluten-free.