Eating gluten-free in Hamburg

Hamburg is a harbour and trading city, and that shows in the food people eat on the move: the classic snack is a filled bread roll eaten standing up. With a few fixed addresses and a little planning you can still get through the day well here.

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

Can you eat out gluten-free in Hamburg?

Yes, as long as you decide in advance where the proper meal is going to happen. Hamburg has a great deal of fast, informal catering, and almost all of it is built on the wheat bread roll. There are checked places that handle gluten-free reliably, from cafés and snack bars to a bakery, and some of them work entirely without gluten.

Do not rely on the allergen information alone, though: it names the ingredients, but not whether the pan, the fryer and the tongs are used for everything together. For food sold loose, the information may be given verbally if a clearly visible notice says so; the written record behind it has to be accessible to you on request, so do ask for it.

What should I know about Hamburg?

Hamburg is spread out: half an hour on the train can sit between two reliable addresses, and a detour back can easily cost you half an afternoon. Where it is busy, staff work to a rhythm and equipment is used for everything at once. Before musical performances and during trade fairs, tables are scarce, so it is worth reserving and mentioning your requirement when you do.

Plan the day around the meal rather than around the sight. At the fish market early on a Sunday morning, at the Dom funfair and at the harbour birthday celebrations, people eat standing up, so pack your own bread. The Franzbrötchen, Hamburg’s cinnamon pastry, is made from wheat dough and is out as well.

Which northern German dishes contain gluten?

In northern German cooking the gluten usually sits in the thickening and in the side dish:

• Labskaus: Mashed potatoes with corned beef, beetroot and gherkins. The basic ingredients contain no cereal, the tin and the bottle do: cured meat can contain wheat starch, and Worcestershire sauce used for seasoning classically contains malt vinegar made from barley. Ask about the meat and the seasoning.
• Pannfisch (pan-fried fish): Fried pieces of fish with fried potatoes in a mustard sauce. The fish is floured or breaded, and the mustard sauce is classically thickened with a roux. Ask about flour, breading and thickening separately.
• Finkenwerder Scholle: Plaice with crisply rendered bacon and onions, on menus as Maischolle from May. Everything depends on how the fish goes into the pan: usually floured, sometimes with breadcrumbs, and there are flourless versions too. Ask about flour and crumbs.
• Hamburger Aalsuppe (Hamburg eel soup): A sweet and sour soup with dried fruit, soup vegetables and smoked meat. The stock itself is cereal-free, the other components often are not: flour dumplings, called Klüten here, and a roux for thickening are both usual, and in old versions the eel is cooked in butter with breadcrumbs. Ask about the garnish, the thickening and the way the eel is prepared, separately.
• Grünkohl mit Kochwurst und Kasseler (kale with cooked sausage and cured pork): Many recipes stir oat groats or oat flakes into the kale, and oats are only suitable for you when they are explicitly declared gluten-free. The sausage is often a groats sausage itself: depending on the maker, Grützwurst contains roughly 7 to 16 per cent oat groats, and Pinkel barley groats as well, and barley is gluten. So do not just ask about starch and wheat, ask about groats in the sausage and about additives in the cured pork, and ask to see the ingredient list.
• Birnen, Bohnen und Speck (pears, beans and bacon): Green beans, cooking pears, bacon and potatoes in stock. No cereal is called for, the thickening is the open question: some recipes stir flour into the stock, others only cornflour. Ask about the thickening, the stock and the bacon.
• Matjes nach Hausfrauenart (Matjes fillets in a creamy sauce): Matjes fillets in a soured cream sauce with apple, onion and gherkin. The fresh ingredients contain no cereal, a bought-in sauce can, because ready-made sauces are often thickened with starch. On top of that comes the pan that floured fish was in, so ask for a sauce mixed in-house.
• Rote Grütze (thick red berry pudding): Red berries and sour cherries, cooked down thick, with milk or vanilla sauce. Traditionally it is thickened with starch, semolina or sago: sago is fine, the starch here is usually cornflour or potato starch, the semolina normally wheat semolina. Ask for cornflour or potato starch rather than “starch”, and always ask when semolina is involved.

Your chances are good with potatoes, fish, meat and vegetables without flour, breading or a thickened sauce. Ask about the pan there too.

What should I watch for at the harbour and the fish market?

The fish market is held every Sunday morning and finishes at 9.30, starting considerably earlier in summer than in winter; the exact times are published by the Altona district office. Not every café is open at 9.30, so plan the proper meal in beforehand or fix it for afterwards.

At the market and at the stalls along the Elbe, the gluten is almost always in the bread roll, not in the fish. Bismarckhering (pickled herring fillet), Rollmops, Matjes and North Sea brown shrimp normally contain no cereal as a filling on their own, but marinades and spice mixes are bought in, so ask about the brand in the tub. Practically nobody here has a gluten-free roll, so bring your own. The real exclusion is the Backfischbrötchen: the fish is turned in flour, pulled through a batter of flour and beer, and fried in the fat used for breaded food. That rules out anything from the fryer.

Order the portion of fish without the roll on a paper tray, and ask whether the knife and the tongs are used for the rolls as well. Remoulade is usually mayonnaise-based, which does not make it safe: ready-made remoulade can contain wheat starch, modified wheat starch or wheat flour. If the starch comes from wheat, the cereal has to appear in the ingredient list, only you have no label in front of you at the stall. Ask about the brand, or leave the sauce out. Beer and Alsterwasser (a shandy) contain barley malt. Be there early, while there is still time for questions behind the counter.

How does Gluti help me in Hamburg?

In Gluti you can see on the map which places in and around Hamburg 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”. Places you like can be saved as favourites.

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. The guides on cafés and bakeries and, for days with the fish market, the Dom or the harbour birthday, on gluten-free travel go with that. If a good place in Hamburg is missing from Gluti, you can suggest it in the app. And for talking to others: the German coeliac society (Deutsche Zöliakie-Gesellschaft, DZG) can tell you which volunteer contacts and self-help groups cover Hamburg.