Ever since the mini Ds were born my opportunities for scoping out gluten free finds have been mostly fleeting moments snatched between running an errand or my day job. The days of wandering around on weekend city breaks seeking out thee best local gluten free finds have been replaced with the demands of 2 three year olds who mostly want to find the nearest playground.

So when I realised that I’d booked a hotel in Madrid on the same street as a 100% gluten free bakery (unintentionally, honest!), I was feeling hopeful I’d get to take a look. As it turned out, I got to visit not just one, but two gluten free bakeries during our trip to Madrid…

The Sana Locura 100% gluten free bakery is located on Calle del Gral Oraá, 49, 28006 Madrid. Note this is not in the centre of Madrid. However if you’re staying in the upmarket Salamanca district, you can easily walk to it.

Sana Locura has a number of tables so you can eat in or take out as we did.

We visited in the late afternoon and I was impressed to see many items available.

This is a 100% gluten free bakery. Their website says 95% of their items are also lactose free.

Just look at the patisserie above, so beautiful.

There were many celebration cakes available to buy.

And this epic shoe cake, how fun!

The staff member I spoke to didn’t speak any English and my Spanish is a little limited. I asked which items contained nuts and many of the cakes, patisserie did. However, I suspect this was lost a bit in translation but I couldn’t risk it so I stuck to items which did not contain nuts.

A baguette which was the best I’ve ever had fresh, so light yet crispy on the outside. Sadly they’d run out of “beauty bread”.

A croissant. As far as I know no gluten free bakery in Paris is doing a freshly baked gluten free croissants so this was a major treat. It was denser than a regular croissant but nonetheless was filled with layers just as you’d expect. It was really very good. And if return to Sana Locura just to buy these alone.

I also bought a doughnut. Some “squiggle biscuits” for my daughter (which she talked about all weekend) and Mr D had a flaky tart with cherry on top which he pronounced as excellent.

Opening hours: Please make sure you check the website here. At the time of posting this blog, the bakery closes for a couple of hours in the afternoon and are not open on Mondays
Cost: €6 (yes six Euros!) for all of the above.
Would I come back? Absolutely. There were plenty of tables to eat in. However, it would be a great place to visit in the morning to pick up a picnic for the day ahead.

More tips for gluten free Madrid:

• Celicioso has a 100% gluten free bakeries in Madrid. I bought some alfajores (a shortbread like biscuit) filled with dulce de leche here and they were so good! Again there was plenty of seating here if you wanted to eat in.

• The Bagaray restaurant in Madrid Zoo offers a gluten free menu (I didn’t eat here)

• We stayed at the Barcelo Emperatriz which is a short walk from the Sana Locura bakery. This 5 star hotel was wonderful for gluten free food, both in the breakfast and in the evening for dinner. The bar also stocked gluten free beer. You can see some images on my Instagram page.
• Around the corner (literally) from our hotel was the fantastic Jose Luis where we enjoyed delicious pinchos. The anchovies here were the juiciest and fullest flavour I’ve ever eaten and frankly I’d return for their black truffle tortilla alone. This is not a gluten free restaurant but many of the Spanish pinchos plates are naturally gluten free and the staff were able to explain what I could eat.

• A really good resource for finding gluten free restaurants in Madrid is the Celiaquitos blog.

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