Abu Dhabi’s first totally gluten-free bakery quietly opened its doors on a side street in Al Rowdah, near Al Bateen airport, last month. Firin Gluten-Free Bakery, operating in a hard-to-find area that’s still under construction, is one of the capital’s newest hidden gems: offering not only delicious gluten-free baking but also a stylish, cafe atmosphere.
Emirati owner Moza Al Mazrouei says her bakery has generated a lot of excitement in the gluten-free community, in part because of the 100-per-cent rule.
For many people with allergies or coeliac disease, the risk of cross-contamination in cafes that offer items containing gluten is too great.
“We hear stories from customers every day,” says Al Mazrouei. “We see tears every day. People can’t believe everything here is gluten-free because it’s so tasty. It’s not dry. It’s not what they’re used to with gluten-free.”
Five years ago if you told Al Mazrouei that she would one day own a gluten-free bakery in the capital, she would have called you crazy. She has three master’s degrees and, until recently, was working at the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research. Running a bakery was simply not on her to-do list. But that was before her daughter, Mariam, was diagnosed with an allergy to gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye, barley and oats.
Gluten allergies, along with the closely linked coeliac disease, are serious disorders that cause damage to the small intestine when gluten is consumed. Mariam tested positive for the allergy when she was 9 months old. “I started to build my knowledge of the disease,” says Al Mazrouei. “I started to educate myself about gluten. This was completely new for me.”
For the first few years of Mariam’s life, Al Mazrouei bought, made and imported a list of gluten-free foods for her daughter. She quickly learnt that “gluten-free” often meant dry, tasteless and inedible.
Realising the limited choices available to her daughter often drove Al Mazrouei to tears. It was while searching for better options that she came across Firin Bakery, a successful gluten-free operation in Kuwait. She contacted the owner, Ghada Khalaf, about opening a location in Abu Dhabi. “She was very nice,” says Al Mazrouei. “But the first thing she asked me was: ‘Do you have coeliac disease or gluten allergies?’ I said no, my daughter does. She said OK. Then we can do this.’” Khalaf only wanted to franchise to someone who had a personal connection to the disease.
With a bank of more than 80 proven recipes from Firin Bakery in Kuwait, Al Mazrouei became the proud – and passionate – owner of Firin Gluten-Free Bakery Abu Dhabi.
The bakery offers muffins, cakes and pastries; bread loaves and pitas; fatayer, zaatar, pizza, quiche and more. Soon, it will offer daily breakfast items as well as pastas and salads. The cafe also serves organic teas and organic coffee from freshly roasted beans. You can even get siphoned coffee here, a brewing method that involves two chambers, boiling water, vapour pressure and vacuum. Watching it is a mini science experiment.
For the sceptical, Al Mazrouei has proof that everything in her bakery is gluten-free, having sent samples of every item for testing to a lab in Dubai. She provides those results to curious customers. “We are the only ones who are doing this,” says Al Mazrouei. “We have to let customers feel comfortable and secure when eating here. Any small amount of gluten for a coeliac patient is dangerous. We need a safe place, a safe kitchen for them.”
Al Mazrouei is in the bakery every day, meeting customers, sharing stories of the challenges that come with living a gluten-free lifestyle and ensuring her bakery is a success. Its biggest fan is Mariam, now 6, who comes to the bakery every day after school. Al Mazrouei says: “She really likes the food here. She feels she’s in a safe place. She’ll grab anything and start eating without questions. She doesn’t need to ask, ‘does this have gluten?’”
Al Mazrouei wants to open a branch of her bakery in every emirate, but she has other plans too.
“I feel very encouraged,” she says. “My dream of this bakery has come true. Now, I’m dreaming of having a gluten-free awareness centre in Abu Dhabi. This is a social-responsibility project for me. I want people to benefit from us, from this place. And I need to spread awareness.”
• Firin Gluten-Free Bakery is open Saturdays to Thursdays from 8am to 8pm. For more information, call 02 447 1711, or visit www.facebook.com/firinbakeryuae
sjohnson@thenational.ae
