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Hello!  I really wanted to share with you my London hotel experience again 
that I posted in 2006.  I will not go to London again unless I can stay at this 
hotel!!  Here is my summary of my one-week stay in London at the London 
Metropole Hotel.

I just got back from a fantastic 2-week vacation in Europe. I will go into more 
detail of which restaurants you can eat at while visiting Rome, Sorrento, 
Pompeii, Edinburgh and London in another e-mail, but in this e-mail I just 
wanted to share with you the most welcoming and endearing hotel and 
restaurant a celiac could ever stay and eat in while visiting London. Please 
feel free to send this e-mail to any celiac website you wish to. That is how 
great the Hilton Metropole Hotel is. If I ever go to London again, this is the 
ONLY hotel I would consider staying in!

We had booked a Globus Monogram London tour and the Hilton Metropole 
Hotel was the hotel that our touring group would be staying in. I e-mailed the 
hotel about my dietary requirements, and they forwarded my e-mail to their 
head chef, Nigel Frost. Chef Nigel e-mailed me that I would not have to worry 
at all, and that they would even have some gluten-free bread and muffins 
available for my stay.

We had toured Italy first before going to London. Unfortunately, my 
experience with restaurants and g-f food in Italy was not the best (even with 
all my research!). I was pretty depressed food-wise by the time I got to 
London (I will explain in a subsequent e-mail). When we entered the Fiamma 
Restaurant in the Hilton Metropole Hotel for dinner the first night, the waiting 
staff and chefs had already been informed of my dietary needs. Within 5 
minutes of seating, Chef Michael Pascal appeared at my table asking me what 
I would like for dinner. I am embarrassed to say that I started crying! I had 
been denied quite a few wonderful dining experiences the entire week before 
in Italy, and it was like a dream to have this smiling chef in front of me asking 
what I would like him to make me for dinner! I was so overwhelmed and that is 
why the tears came so quickly!

Chef Michael was an absolute sweetheart. He understood the cross-
contamination issues, the marinade and sauce issues, etc. We decided on a 
roasted chicken with mashed potatoes and GRAVY (a reduction sauce with no 
flour in it!) and vegetables. I had a salad and used my own Kraft ranch 
dressing individual packets that I had ordered before my trip. These individual 
salad dressing packets really came in handy during my trip. I know he would 
have made a salad dressing for me, but I really liked these salad dressing 
packets. This hotel also had a dessert buffet every night that included the 
most exotic desserts (the cost was 5.95 pounds). My husband would enjoy 
the dessert buffet while Chef Michael whipped me up a creme brulee for my 
enjoyment. Another chef, Chef Vivian Pedrihina, was also there on the nights 
that Chef Michael or head Chef Nigel wasn't. If you bring your g-f pasta, they 
would gladly make you spaghetti. They will do anything for you there! One 
time at breakfast, I saw a gentleman at the breakfast bar with the same g-f 
bread that the restaurant offered me. When I asked about the bread, he said 
he was celiac also and loved staying at their hotel.

Breakfast was included every day in our stay. Their breakfast buffet was 
incredible. Of course there was all of the pastries you could imagine - very 
nice to look at and my husband sure enjoyed them. They also had tons of fruit 
and yogurt, cheeses and meats, and a hot breakfast, including eggs, bacon, 
ham, potatoes, etc. Chef Michael had fresh oil set aside for me so I could 
have fried potatoes at any time I wished. There was a cook who made fresh 
eggs any way you would want them. They had also ordered gluten-free bread 
for me and toasted it somehow without any cross-contamination (I brought 
my little toaster bag but they didn't need to use it). The thoughtfulness of 
them ordering the gluten-free bread for me touched me deeply, however, I 
didn't like the taste of the gluten free bread. I had brought with me my 
Kinnikinnick english muffins and they toasted those for me every single morning 
instead (I put two bags of Kinnikinnick english muffins in my suitcase and had 
the hotel restaurants in Rome and London put the bag in their restaurant 
freezers). Chef Michael would also have the foresight to take a Kinnikinnick 
frozen english muffin out of the freezer the night before so it would be 
defrosted for breakfast for me. Also, they gave me TWO gluten-free 
individually packed muffins with my breakfast every day! Everything from 
poppyseed, lemon and chocolate muffins! The breakfast chef who was in 
charge of me in the morning - his name is Chef Ulli Halufe. He is the most 
sweetest man in the world. He would come out every morning to see me to 
make sure I was taken care of. On our last day, he even came out and walked 
my husband and I to the door as we left the hotel. 

When we went to Paris for a day, I picked up four little gifts for these chefs 
that made my London trip a trip I will remember for the rest of my life. The 
chefs names again are:

Chef Nigel Frost (head chef)
Chef Michael Pascal
Chef Ulli Halufe
Chef Vivian Pedrihina

Just e-mail either Chef Nigel at [log in to unmask] or Chef Michael at 
[log in to unmask] that you are coming to stay at their hotel. I 
guarantee they will take care of you!

Sue
[log in to unmask]

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