Baobab Cafe — Restaurant in Charnwood

I drove from Leicester with my dad just to have coffee and cake here, and I regret nothing! We are both wheat intolerant and this place was a dream come true. Coeliacs, gluten free, dairy free and vegan eaters alike need to know about this place!

The owner (pictured) is coeliac himself and is very aware of the finer details, such as cross contamination. He personally came and went through all of the cakes (most of which were clearly labelled anyway) to let us know which ones we could safely eat.

Eating gluten free can be really limiting when out and about. Usually we end up choosing between a brownie and maybe one other option, but not here! Six gluten free proper cakes (including gluten free cheesecakes and tiramisu!), plus 3 or 4 gluten free traybakes! We were over the moon at actually having choices! We chose lemon drizzle cake and tiramisu and they were absolutely divine.

The coffee was lovely too and nicely presented, including my dad’s piccolo latte (an Aussie thing, many baristas here in the uk are confused by it - but not this guy!). They have four different dairy free milk alternatives to choose from.

The staff were all lovely, particularly the owner. You can see how passionate he is about his business and about making sure his customers enjoy their food and drinks, while enabling them to stay safe from allergens. I will be happy to make the 20 minute drive again just to go to Baobab.

If I could improve anything it would be that the seating/decor could do with a bit of refining but that’s not a big deal! The place was clean and well lit with lots of outside seating in the sun. No...

absolutely disgusted with their customer service, I paid £7.00 something for their breakfast, it came with no egg, it was cold and the bacon wasn't very nice, you may think I'm sounding pathetic but when you pay over £7.00 for a breakfast I should expect to receive a good one atleast and with no items missing. I had rang the restaurant to say that I had received no egg or beans, her customer service was very poor, swearing down the phone to me, saying that I was shouting at her when I wasn't. and to top it off she put the phone down on me so I had then rang back and spoken to the manager and he was exactly the same! I'm so shocked and I've never had this level of customer service in my life and I will not be going there again! It also seems that in some of the reviews when people go to complain about their issue they seem to get on the defensive side which they did exact same to me. just to note, my partner had an omelette which involves egg, she told me she forgotten to put the egg on the breakfast. how hard can that be? I ended cooking myself 2 eggs and took me 2 minutes. really not happy with this place at all, they have lost mine and my partners custom. So rude, they don't deserve...

Thought we'd give this café a try, looks clean and very busy. Ordered our drinks and snacks sat at table studying the vast menu on the wall. It's great that they would take the time to offer help with special dietary needs and allergies but that's where it stopped. Whilst orders for baguettes being made yes disposable gloves used no hand contamination but these gloves went into cooked meat,salad, cooked bacon and at times eating sun dried tomatoes with the same gloves. Another assistant using the same knife to cut toast and then more baguettes. And it went on and on, allergies and contamination all in one move. Let's move on to cleaning, wiping down containers above the cooking area then using the same cloth on the cutting board which by now had had cooked meat and salad stuff. I must say contamination is rife in here Allergies/contamination not recognised. Food being eaten by staff member straight from display cabinet, the containers being emptied into others cross contamination, for example if you have allergy to advacado bare hands has touched all the trays now, cooked meat etc all that where the bare hand was used which really surprised me. Pity really because five stars was...