After I’ve traveled approximately 24.630 km in two days, I needed a break and a good lunch. Luckily, I knew just the place for that — 15 to 20 minutes away from the airport in Düsseldorf. I pre-ordered in English, but I quickly noticed it was better to switch to some German I could still come up with. After some difficulties with the pick-up from the airport — beforehand I told my father it isn’t easy to take the correct route when you come close to the Flughafen, and without a stable internet connection on my phone — we managed to locate each other because of this big orange container they put near the taxi stand. He regretted not having taken a photo of me, because he was really impressed with how I managed to be able to travel with three suitcases (two small ones) and two bags. He drove us to Isabella Glutenfrei Patisserie before we headed back to the Netherlands. When we came closer to the center I noticed the Umweltplakkette sign, and I totally forgot to order one, since my father doesn’t have this sticker on his car and he didn’t know about needing one in Germany when you enter the city center. At this moment, we are still awaiting the fine to fall on the doormat for entering the environmental zone without it 🙃. This is one of the things that shows it can be a burden to need to eat gluten-free, since this was the closest place I could safely order from.

We found a parking spot close to Isabella (if I remember correctly the sign indicated — two hours of free parking) and when I entered the store my order was perfectly waiting behind the counter. The woman who I spoke to on the phone prepared my tea and my father’s coffee fresh when we entered the store. That’s a big plus, especially for me, since I like to drink my tea or coffee hot to the touch!

It was nice and sunny but we took the order to the car. To me, it was still too chilly to sit outside. We both enjoyed this lunch a lot. My father liked to joke about the weight of the croissants, but when you actually eat them they feel much lighter to digest than the buttery gluten croissants. I ordered from the menu in German: eine Tee aus Orange, frischer Minze und Bio-Ingwer; eine Cappuccino mit glutenfreier Hafermilch; zwei glutenfreie vegane Croissants; zwei glutenfreie Laugenbrötchen — Bio-Qualität und vegan — eine glutenfreie Bio-Panini mit Ziegenfrischkäse, Rucola, Feigen und Pinienkernen; vegane Bio-Panini mit Avocado-Pulp, Tomaten und Wildkräutersalat; und eine laktosefreie Spinat-Quiche. For a total of 39,80 euro!

We finished everything in the car except for the quiche that we shared when we got back to Voorschoten. It was a really good lunch. Everything tasted great, fresh, and was handled with care — highly recommend that you visit Isabella Düsseldorf —Arnulfstraße! They have another store in Düsseldorf —Kö-Galerie and more stores throughout Germany. Though, we didn’t buy any cakes or pastries — they did look beautiful!

Here’s a link to their online shop: https://isabella-patisserie.de/shop/

Safety: Everything in their store is dedicated gluten-free, plus the oat milk!