Subscribe to trusted local news
If you are accessing this story via Facebook but you are a subscriber then you will be unable to access the story. Facebook wants you to stay and read in the app and your login details are not shared with Facebook. If you experience problems with accessing the news but have subscribed, please contact subscriptions@thestrayferret.co.uk. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever. By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.
- Subscription costs less than £1 a week with an annual plan.
Already a subscriber? Log in here.
26
Mar
‘It’s food everyone can enjoy’: Exclusively gluten-free café to open in Harrogate
Local gluten-intolerant or coeliac residents need no longer fear dining out as an exclusively gluten-free café is opening in Harrogate.
Otto Café, which has taken over the Oxford Street unit formerly occupied by Jojo Maman Bébé, will serve hot food and sweet treats – all without gluten.
Co-owner Sara Ferguson is gluten intolerant and members of her immediate family are coeliac.
“It’s really close to my heart”, she told the Stray Ferret yesterday (March 25).
So, when Ms Ferguson and her fiancé and co-owner Jonathan Skinner were drawing up plans for a new venture, there was one condition: it had to be gluten free.
Ms Ferguson, whose portfolio of Harrogate businesses includes Sasso and Caffe Marconi, said:
There’s a big need for it – there’s nowhere that’s exclusively gluten free in Harrogate. I understand how wonderful it is when you have that intolerance or if you’re coeliac to walk in somewhere and feel 100% safe, without worrying about cross-contamination.
Even more amazing is knowing you can eat anything on the menu. It’s such a great thing for adults and parents who might have coeliac children… there’s a market for it. It just made sense.
The unit has been empty since Jojo Maman Bébé closed in Harrogate last year.
'Simple but grade A'
Mr Skinner, who is balancing opening the café with training for a kettlebell-lifting European championship, said gluten-free options on menus can be “really depressing”.
But the couple were adamant that there will not only be “a great choice of all the gluten-free stuff there is to offer”, but also “food everyone can enjoy”.
A lot of the food at Otto Café will be made in-house, including a "potey bowl", as coined by Mr Skinner.
He said it is a jacket potato squashed into the shape of a bowl. It is then topped with homemade fillings such as ragu, or chicken, smoked bacon and leek in a cream sauce, or ratatouille – all gluten-free, of course.
There will also be sandwiches – the focaccia bread for which will be baked in-house – and sweet treats. Scones will be made by Otto, but some of the baked goods will be outsourced.
Mr Skinner added:
We’re not going to have a 50-item menu. It’s going to be simple but everything on it will be grade A – we know how to do it really well. Everything is high-quality.
Ms Ferguson hopes people “won’t be able to taste a difference” when they eat the gluten-free foods.
'Just come and have a look'
The Oxford Street unit is still a work in progress, but the couple are working hard to bring it to life – including handmaking their own tables.
Mr Skinner, who has tried his hand at crafting a table before, said he was offered scaffolding boards by a gym he trains at in Cheshire.
Staff at the gym knew about plans for Otto and gave him the wood, which will be used to create tables and benches and for the bar area. He said:
I’ve made a table from scaffolding boards before and I really enjoyed it. That’s what we’re on with at the moment.
But why should someone visit Otto – especially without an allergy or intolerance?
"Just come and have a look – come and see”, Ms Ferguson said, adding:
It’s easy to discount it not being any good, but it’s definitely worth coming to have a look. Jonny isn’t gluten-free and it’s food he will eat… so if it’s passed his taste-test, we’re good!
Otto, which means eight in Italian, will be dog-friendly and will have an outdoor seating area once new decking has been installed.
Ms Ferguson and Mr Skinner hope to serve their first customers by late April or early May – an exact date is yet to be confirmed.
Otto will open 8.30am until 4pm, Wednesday to Sunday, initially.
0