Eating gluten-free in Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf runs on the rhythm of its trade fairs, and that shapes how you eat here more than the cooking does. The old town is the densest restaurant quarter and at the same time the hardest one for you. With a plan there is still plenty you can do.

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

Can you eat out gluten-free in Düsseldorf?

Yes, if you think of the city in two parts. Plan your main meal at a place with a gluten-free kitchen of its own and ask there as well; Gluti shows you where one is. The old town with its brewery taverns is the difficult part: beer, bread, breadcrumbs and a shared fryer are part of the concept there.

Düsseldorf has one advantage: the largest Japanese quarter in Germany, where rice, fish and vegetables are a matter of course. But soy sauce is almost always brewed with wheat, as are teriyaki and ponzu; panko, tempura, ramen, udon and curry roux are wheat, and miso can be barley. Ask for a tamari explicitly labelled gluten-free, since unlabelled tamari can contain wheat, and for a separate pan.

Allergen information covers the recipe, not the kitchen. It may be given verbally, but behind it there has to be a written or electronic record of the allergenic ingredients, which you can ask to see before you pay. Whether something is being breaded beside it in the same pan is not in there.

What should I know about Düsseldorf?

The trade fair calendar decides when and how fast people eat: tables are scarce then, and the kitchens work to the pace of the halls. Add to that carnival, the Rheinkirmes funfair and Japan-Tag, which turn everything into mass catering. The old town is almost wall-to-wall hospitality, and the brewery taverns set its tone.

At the peaks nobody has time for questions, so something in your bag is no luxury. Many small businesses close earlier than the brewery taverns. Check the opening hours and put the safe meal early in the day.

Which Rhineland dishes contain gluten?

Rhineland cooking likes to hide flour in steps that appear on no menu:

• Halve Hahn: No chicken, despite the name, but a halved rye roll called Röggelchen, with sliced cheese, mustard and onions. The roll is rye and usually wheat too, and some mustards are thickened with wheat flour. Düsseldorfer Mostert and Löwensenf contain no flour. Order a cheese plate without the roll and ask which mustard they use.
• Rheinischer Sauerbraten: Today usually beef, classically horse meat, marinated for days in red wine and vinegar. The dark sauce is thickened with crumbled Printen spiced biscuits made from wheat flour, often with gravy thickener as well, and flour and dumplings come with it. It is pre-cooked and cannot be swapped, so pick something else.
• Düsseldorfer Senfrostbraten: A beef steak finished under heat with a thick paste of mustard and onions. Breadcrumbs in the crust are one route, wheat flour in the mustard the other, and it is often browned on the same tray as the breaded items. Ask about crust, mustard and tray, and take boiled potatoes.
• Düsseldorfer Senfsuppe: Leek, onion, cream, two kinds of mustard, and unsafe all the same: it is thickened with a wheat flour roux, and Altbier, bread and vegetable stock come with it, the stock possibly containing wheat or barley malt. Even a version without flour is no help to you.
• Reibekuchen mit Apfelkraut (potato fritters with apple spread): The fritters of potato, onion and egg are almost always bound, usually with flour, sometimes with oats or breadcrumbs, and ordinary oats are no good for you. And even without a binder, fritters, chips and cutlets go through the same fryer.
• Himmel un Ähd (heaven and earth): Mashed potato, apple sauce, braised onions and crisply fried Blutwurst (black pudding). The slices are usually turned in wheat flour before frying, and some kinds of black pudding contain bread or groats, though Rhenish Flönz contains no grain. Neither appears on the menu, so ask about the flour and about the sausage.
• Muscheln rheinische Art (mussels Rhineland style): Mussels in a stock of white wine, onions, soup vegetables, bouillon and spices. Mussels and wine are grain-free, the bouillon often is not, because instant vegetable stock frequently contains wheat or barley malt, and many kitchens deglaze with beer as well. Ask about the stock and the bouillon first, then about bread and chips.
• Rheinischer Heringsstipp: Salt herring or Matjes in cream and Schmand (a thick soured cream) with onions, apple and horseradish. Check pre-marinated herring and jarred horseradish for wheat in the ingredient list. In the Rhineland it comes with bread and fried potatoes with bacon, both out for you, so ask for boiled potatoes.
• To drink: Altbier is brewed from barley malt and contains gluten, as do Malzbier and alcohol-free Alt. Low readings are no help, because the usual tests do not pick up every gluten fragment in a fermented beer. Water, juice, lemonade and wine are safe, and with herbal liqueurs only the distillate.

Your best bets are mussels once the stock is cleared up, Heringsstipp with boiled potatoes, a cheese plate without the roll, and quickly fried meat or fish without sauce or breading. Ask about the pan there too.

How do I get through an evening at a brewery tavern in the old town?

Anyone visiting ends up in a brewery tavern, usually with no notice. Settle the drink first, because in the taverns attached to the breweries the Köbes, as the waiters there are called, brings a fresh Alt unasked until a beer mat is lying on top. Then the menu, because the classics are the problem cases: the rye roll, the Printen sauce, the breadcrumb crust, breaded cutlets, and fried potatoes and fritters out of the pan used for the breaded items.

The Köbes is service and not kitchen, so in the crush a question to him gets you little. Better to settle it by phone in the late afternoon: whether quickly fried meat or fish without flour and breading is possible in a fresh pan, and whether there are boiled potatoes. Better still, take your main meal elsewhere during the day and let the tavern supply only the drink. At carnival and in funfair season there is barely time for questions there, so ask anyway and expect short answers.

How does Gluti help me in Düsseldorf?

In Gluti you can see on the map which places in and around Düsseldorf 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”. That helps you lay out the day: a place with a kitchen of its own becomes your main meal, and the tavern is the supporting act. For many places you can also see whether others would eat gluten-free there again.

Even checked information is no guarantee, because things can change in a kitchen. So ask every time anyway. Which questions work and which answers are a warning sign is in the article What to ask in a restaurant, and the background on fryers, pizza ovens and toasters is in the article on cross-contamination. If you are moving around a lot, the guide on gluten-free travel will help, and for breakfast and cake there is the guide to café and bakery. If you know a good place in Düsseldorf that is missing from Gluti, you can suggest it in the app. And for talking to others: the German coeliac society (Deutsche Zöliakie-Gesellschaft, DZG) runs volunteer-led discussion groups across the country, and the DZG can tell you whether there is one in Düsseldorf or the Rhineland.