Gluten Free And Glittery

Hello gluten free-ers! 🙂 Hope you are having a lovely week! Today I am sharing an awesome new(ish) restaurant in Charlottesville, VA that is super gluten free friendly….Roots Natural Kitchen. Roots is located right on the UVA Corner at 1329 West Main St. Think Chipotle…but much healthier and better and gluten free heaven. Everything is based in a bowl. You have the option of different rices and types of salad as your “base.” And then you build your meal from there! You walk down a line and pick out your ingredients as you go or alternatively you can choose one of their suggested pairings.

And here’s where it gets good…everything except for their bulgar and pita chips are GLUTEN FREE. The staff is very well trained on what gluten free is. Each item has its own scooper, which prevents cross contamination. Since all bases (rice and salads) are gluten free, that eliminates a lot of concern too. Each creation is kept in its separate metal bowl as it moves down the line so the surfaces aren’t shared. All of their sauces currently are gluten free including a soy sauce based one because they use tamarind which is gluten free!!! Even their BBQ sauce is gluten free which I am in love with!! All of their meats/protein offerings are also gluten free. Again, the only gluten containing foods are bulgar and pita chips—-YIPPEE!! With scoopers the staff does not touch any of the foods (aside from salad which is the first thing to be grabbed and only certain staff works that portion of the line). So far…I have gone over 5 times and never once have I been sick.

Did I mention that Roots is super vegetarian and vegan-friendly?! Everyone can be happy here! Unless you don’t like fresh food with tons of variety! 😛

Cons: not a ton of seating and the line is super long because this place is ridiculously popular! totally worth it though!

Huge portions, reasonable price, gluten free, fresh and healthy? How can you go wrong?

Remember to always check with the wait staff at each restaurant about their gluten free status before placing your order as recipes and ingredients can change.