The Good Life Eatery — Restaurant in London

I love brunch. Hands down it’s my favourite meal. You can have eggs benedict, pancakes, a full English, or a burger. It covers every possible food group. And again, pancakes. Pancakes. Pancakes. Pancakes. Oh how I love them. Except finding gluten free pancakes is akin with finding that pot of gold that apparently exists at the end of every rainbow. So I turned my attention to The Good Life Eatery instead, and okay fine, they didn’t have pancakes. But they did have waffles, and that is almost just as exciting!

Not only do they have waffles, they have GUILT FREE waffles. The kind that don’t cling to your thighs the moment you swallow them.

We arrived and didn’t have to wait too long for a table, and I spent a good amount of time being distracted by the window display of cakes and bread made from the most innocent of ingredients – quinoa, spelt, angels tears and probably even blessed by the Pope. Y’know, that sort of ingredients.

A table became free and we bolted in its direction in the only way two hungry females could. Elbows out, handbag prepped and ready to barge others out of the way, with steely, determined looks on our faces. Once the table was claimed by putting our iPhone’s on top in a ‘Sorry you can’t sit here, these seats are ours’ kinda way, we made our way back to the counter to place our order.

‘Paleo waffles and an almond milk latte please!’

‘Sweetened or unsweetened almond milk?’

Sweetened OR unsweetened almond milk? These people speak my language. I mean, the other day I was in the grocery store and there was only sweetened almond milk on the shelf. I found an employee of the store and I asked him if he would go check out back for the unsweetened version, because why drink double the calories when you don’t need to? Yep, I actually said exactly that. Being offered a choice between the two in a cafe had never happened to me up until this day. I was seriously impressed.

Back at our seats, I sipped at my unsweetened almond milk latte and waited as patiently as I could for my plate of waffles. And THEN there were waffles. Paleo Chestnut and Almond Waffles to be exact. WITH chia strawberry jam, coconut yoghurt, and strawberries. Yuuummmmm! And they were seriously YUM. We both devoured our plates with not a crumb left, yet we didn’t have that awful ‘I’ve eaten too much and should have stopped 3 mouthfuls ago’ uncomfortable feeling. That’s the joy of clean eating!

We settled our bill, and as we left I made a mental note to return for the acai bowl and baked...

The girl taking our order when we arrived said it was her first day and she said she didn’t speak much English, I felt sorry for her as she clearly hadn’t had much training on the menu or till. We didn’t know how much we’d paid or get a receipt.

Consequently, my food order didn’t arrive but my sister’s did. The more experienced waitress came over and was brisk with us and instead of apologising, suggested that I obviously hadn’t ordered it! As we hadn’t been given a total at the till we had no idea that it hadn’t gone through or we hadn’t paid. Mistakes happen, I don’t mind that. But I do mind when it’s handled so badly. We mentioned it but she didn’t understand what we were trying to say.

Otherwise, I love the menu and the options available. It’s a real shame about the service and the pricing seems off.

My avo toast was one small slice of bread, whereas my sister had the wrap which was full of chicken, avo, tomato and came with a large bowl of salad - hers was only £2 more?! Didn’t seem to make sense as hers was huge compared to mine.

The other majorly off putting thing is that the toilet was FILTHY. The same toilet that opens onto the food prep area and used by staff. The sink had not been cleaned in a long time and the back of the door...

Really nice healthy eating café in Chelsea with plenty of vegetarian/vegan and gluten-free options. Really fresh ingredients and high quality ingredients and tasty sauces. Well worth the price over salads from other chains (Pret etc).

On this visit we had a Good Life Salad (£11.75) and a Chicken Man Bowl. Both were delicious. The Kale in the Good Life Salad was the tastiest crispiest fresh kale I’ve tasted. My husband had a delicious coffee and I had one of their fresh juice The Lucky 7 which is beetroot based and super-tasty.

The venue is good and more seating than the Marylebone branch (and lighter and brighter) and wasn’t too busy when we visited mid-afternoon on a Monday. There is also some seating outside on the pavement of Sloane Avenue.

Really like their menu and as a healthy eating vegetarian this is one of my favourite lunch places in London.

Only disappointment was the brownie which was nice tasting but very dry. It had clearly been cooked too long/or been on the shelf for too long. I spoke to the staff and it was noted re the quality and they gave us a refund as the other one they had...