Wild Wood Art Cafe, a gluten-free restaurant

July 31, 2009 by Julia
Filed under Westlake Hills, bakeries, restaurants, cafes, coffee shops

restaurant exterior seating

Inside our Greenling Farmbox (a surprise box with items from local food artisans) was this delicious lemon cake that had me emailing Greenling to find out who made the pastry, which Greenling replied with Wild Wood Art Cafe but turned out to be Little Bluestein Bakery. That is how I heard about Wild Wood Art Cafe, a gluten free counter service cafe in Westlake Hills, across the street from Austin’s Pizza. The gluten-free part piqued my interest because I am the type of person who needs to taste test anything that I serve to anyone ahead of time, so if I ever should have a guest at my home with wheat allergies or celiac, I need to know if this is a place where I can get good desserts and food.

I packed up my kids, called the bro to join us, and off we went in search of some wheatless goodies for afternoon snacks. There are a few outdoor benches, but most of the seating is inside the cafe which is surprisingly larger than it looks from the outside. The first thing that I noticed when walking into the cafe is that it smelled like Mr. Natural. It’s a smell that I cannot quite put my finger on exactly what it is, but it smelled “vegetarian.” (My mom used to drag us to a vegetarian cafeteria, and I was taken back to those lunches.) The cafe does not have that warm inviting ooey-gooey, fresh out of the oven, must devour that baked goods kind of smell, but it was not unpleasant, just kind of “sprout-y.” I had my doubts, but the offerings did look enticing.

My oldest pointed in the case and asked for a ding-dong. There were two varieties, regular and grasshopper (mint), and she wanted the regular. They were all out of plain sugar cookies so I nabbed a chocolate chip cookie for the toddler. At the checkout counter, they had some jalapeno biscuits. Interesting… We ordered one of those as well. We grabbed a Sweet Leaf Tea, and off we went to the adjoining room with arts and crafts for sale to enjoy the treats.

dessert case

The preschooler did not even make a face at the ding dong so it passed the kid-test. Both my brother and I nabbed a small bite of it, and surprisingly it was not half-bad. Gluten-free foods from the grab and go case at Whole Foods have not always yielded the most pleasant of desserts with the texture being off more than taste, and this ding dong was actually A-OK. The cookie was more crumbly than a “real” chocolate chip cookie and had the kind of sweetness like a cookie made with honey or maltose instead of refined sugar. It lacked that buttery richness from a Tiff’s Treats cookie, but I would not hesitate to serve this to a house guest with dietary restrictions. The toddler had no problems munching half before passing on the rest. The jalapeno biscuit was -how shall I say it- meh. You just don’t mess with biscuits. It was just a tad too jalapeno-y so the biscuit got lost in the heat. I wrapped up the remaining biscuit to share with hubby. Three adults passed on the biscuit. Enough said.

The rest of the pastries in the ready to take home case looked delicious. We did not try any of the non-dessert menu items. The menu indicated that sandwiches could be ordered on gluten free rice bread, gluten free whole grain ciabatta or vegan sesame seed. I am curious to go back and try a pastrami, sauerkraut, and Swiss sandwich on GF rice bread. I need to know how far off this version is from a New York reuben on rye to satisfy my own curiosity.

I wished that I had known about this place earlier so that I could have gotten some of these treats to share at playgroups back when we had a few kids with wheat issues. At least I know where I can pick up something for future birthday parties when we invite kids with these known sensitivities.