Gluten Free Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara was the final stop on our gluten free Southern Californian road trip this Spring. Santa Barbara is another lovely town and I’m happy to report I managed to find somewhere celiac friendly to enjoy a gluten free meal. I also came across a few other restaurants offering gluten free options so if you’re planning to travel to Santa Barbara for work or just for fun, there are safe options waiting for you!

We ate at Silvergreens (on 791 Chapala St) in downtown Santa Barbara. They have a menu which explains how to order gluten free. They offer gluten free pasta, salads, soups and sides. Whilst they make gluten containing dishes in their kitchen, they have procedures in place to avoid the chance of cross contamination. Gluten free customers can also eat some of their burgers and sandwiches if they are ordered with a lettuce wrap instead of a bun. Similarly, they can do a gluten free breakfast bowl which is basically a burrito without the tortilla. Smoothies, shakes and frozen yoghurt are also celiac friendly. After filling myself up on road trip food (I’m all about gluten free jelly beans when I’m on a road trip!) I was looking for something light when we arrived in Santa Barbara so I went for the tomato basil soup and a fruit salad. It was very tasty. One thing I found a little bizarre yet interesting about this place is that your receipt comes with the nutritional facts of what you ordered. Not so strange for California I guess. Silvergreens also has another restaurant in Isla Vista.

Backyard Bowls (on 331 Motorway) is a restaurant that serves healthy, interesting and delicious sounding Acai bowls, breakfast bowls and smoothies. As everything they serve is natural much of what they do is gluten free and you can make substitues for the things you like best and ingredients which are safe. Their Hot Quinoa Bowl sounds like a wonderful breakfast option for this gluten free traveller. Quinoa, home-made cashew milk, cinnamon and raisins, topped with walnuts, strawberries, blueberries, & agave nectar. Wow! Backyard Bowls is a breakfast and lunch place as they close at 5pm every day so I didn’t get the chance to try it out on this trip but I’ll certainly be checking it out on my next visit to Santa Barbara as it looks pretty similar to Lean and Green in La Jolla, San Diego which was fantastic!

Pizza Guru  (on 3534 State Street) serves gluten free pizza in two different sizes, personal and medium for an additional $2 and $2.75 respectively.  They also carry gluten free beer.

The Savoy Cafe (on 24 W Figueroa St) does gluten free cakes if you’re looking for something savoury.

For gluten free grocery shopping in Santa Barbara, Lazy Acres Market (on 302 Meigs Rd) carries a whole bunch of gluten free products. They have a large variety of baking products, bars, bread products, crackers, soups, ready meals, cereal, pasta, candy and lots more celiac friendly goodies.

What are your experiences of gluten free travelling in Santa Barbara? I’d love to hear what you found so please share in the comments below..

Tasty gluten free soup!

Silvergreens