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We just returned from London, UK with our daughter who has celiac 
disease plus milk and dairy IgG allergies and other environmental 
sensitivities.  It was a risk going as she hadn't been feeling well 
(nausea whenever she ate, acid reflux when she didn't eat), but it was 
a family reunion had been planned for a while so we took a chance.

As many have said before, London (and presumably the rest of the UK) is 
great for gluten free food.  Every restaurant we went to had waiters 
who understood or their chef understood --  she never had a gluten 
reaction the entire trip!!  So I agree with those who say that if you 
travel to the UK, don't sweat the list of gluten free restaurants -- 
you can eat something safely almost everywhere.  We went at busy hours 
and never asked hours or days ahead of time, so we felt we were being 
quite reckless, but we never had problems.

However, for those who have multiple food allergies, it is more 
difficult = or at least you can be assured of a much shorter list of 
food possibilities.  We were staying in a flat and so had access to a 
kitchen.  The only food products we could find that were gf plus dairy 
and egg free were a soy pudding (according to our daughter - quite 
delicious), vanilla and chocolate sandwich cookies (a bit dry but fine 
for tea), and some sandwich rolls (also a great find-- wish I could 
find them locally!!).  Everything we found was at Tesco (one of their 
larger stores - not stocked in their express stores).  Labeling is very 
specific so it is easy to figure out what you can and can't eat.  I 
hear that Tesco is thinking about opening in the US -- I can't wait!!!  
Other stores might also be good - just weren't any in our area.

Eating out, we almost always ended up at Italian restaurants and 
ordered the lemon chicken with rosemary potatoes.  We did have a 
successful Indian meal as well, but the unfamiliar spices or something 
(not gluten) upset our daughter's fragile system.

We even had a safe meal with my aunt cooking - we were really worried 
about it because we have never had a meal that didn't make our child 
sick  that was prepared at a friend's house in the US.  In addition, my 
aunt was preparing a mammoth meal for about 25 people and was being 
assisted by two people who didn't speak English (and my aunt didn't 
speak their native tongues either)/  My aunt was very insulted when we 
asked her what our daughter could eat and said she could figure it out. 
  She was more understanding later when I explained our past experience 
and said that perhaps British food was more pure.

By the way, after the first few days (in which it was hit or miss 
whether my husband and daughter would stay as she still felt dreadful), 
our daughter rallied and was better for the last five days of our 
10-day trip.  Now we are back and she and I both have some sort of 
infection and her constant nausea is back.  However, we may have a 
solution which I will explain in a follow up email called "The Food 
Doctor."

Jackie in AZ

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