Gluten Free Victoria: 2023

For a long time, we’ve been keen to visit the Robert Gordon Pottery factory outlet in Pakenham. It seems such a long way from the Melbourne suburbs, but for us, it was about a 50 minute drive, mostly along the M1 Monash Freeway.

Robert Gordon has been making world class pottery since 1945 and makes some of their range right here in Victoria. The outlet has a very large selection of pottery on display and they also hold pottery classes.

Read more on their site: https://www.robertgordonaustralia.com/

We knew that the outlet has a cafe but knew little about it.

We were expecting pottery but not vegan, gluten & dairy free food!

How wrong we were!

The outlet cafe is called “Nancy” and has both inside and outside tables.

“Nancy” is the sister cafe to “Lorna” in Ferntree Gully and “Maria” in Upwey. Each cafe is named after one of the owners grandmothers; Nancy was Josh's nana, an accomplished Tasmanian cook who also happened to be a potter. The sister cafes also have vegan and gluten free options on their menus.

When planning your trip to Robert Gordon, you must do the following:

Book a table at “Nancy”. We didn’t but were very lucky as we were able to peruse the pottery while we waited for one to become available.
Before you sit down, visit the cake display, where we found some beautiful looking cakes including some vegan & gluten free options, as these are not shown on the menu.

We were very surprised to find many suitable brunch options for us on the menu.

I had a tofu scramble on some very nice gluten & dairy free bread, avocado and some of the home made hash brown.

The rest of the family shared a platter ( designed for Valentines Day) that had eggs your way on toast; mushrooms, Korean Fried Chicken Bao buns; arancini balls and chocolate waffles. Easily fed two, but not all gluten free.