Beyond Detail and Imitation
OUR STORY
More than just a restaurant. A journey that changed everything
Niche began with two friends and former colleagues, Adrian Morgan and Marc Warde, and a fairly simple ambition: to create a neighbourhood restaurant serving great food with genuine hospitality.
When we opened in Angel, Niche wasn't conceived as a gluten-free restaurant. We weren't trying to redefine an industry or start a free-from revolution. We wanted to build the kind of restaurant we liked going to ourselves, somewhere with really good food, a warm welcome and people who genuinely cared whether you had a good time.
From the beginning, we believed that a great restaurant was about far more than what was on the plate. Of course, the food matters enormously, but so does the welcome, the atmosphere, the people looking after you and that feeling that makes you want to come back.
We had absolutely no idea where that simple idea was going to take us.
A Turning Point
Not long after we opened, Marc became increasingly unwell. What followed was a long and frustrating period of hospital appointments, tests and uncertainty before he was eventually diagnosed with coeliac disease.
Sadly, a protracted diagnosis is far from unusual. Coeliac UK says it takes an average of 13 years from the onset of symptoms to receive a diagnosis, and an estimated500,000 people in the UK are living with coeliac disease without knowing it. Those are pretty extraordinary numbers. We have long supported Coeliac UK's work to improve diagnosis, so if any of this sounds familiar, please don't simply remove gluten from your diet — speak to your GP and get tested. Coeliac UK also has a free online assessment that can help you decide whether you should be considered for testing.
It's important to continue eating gluten while you're being tested, as removing or reducing it beforehand can affect the accuracy of the results.
Could it be coeliac disease? Take Coeliac UK's free assessment
For someone who had spent his working life around food and loved eating out, suddenly having to think about every ingredient, every kitchen and every meal was quite an adjustment.
Then one evening over a drink, Adrian said something wonderfully obvious: “There's no point owning a restaurant you can't actually eat in.
”He had a point.And so began a journey that none of us had planned. At first, if we're completely truthful, it was probably quite a selfish one. Marc wanted to be able to eat safely in his own restaurant. But that decision would eventually change Niche completely and, in ways we couldn't possibly have imagined at the time, change much more besides.
The Devil is in the Detail
A New Craft
Despite having spent his career in food and hospitality, Marc quickly discovered that cooking really well without gluten required learning an entirely new set of skills.
Contrary to popular belief, it isn't simply a matter of taking one ingredient out and swapping another one in. Gluten does all sorts of clever things to food, and recreating structure, texture and elasticity without it requires an understanding of hydration, different flours and starches, and quite a lot of patience.
We learned by doing, and we got plenty wrong. There was bread that didn't rise, pastry that either crumbled when you looked at it or could probably have been used as a building material, and more than a few dishes that thankfully never escaped the kitchen.
But gradually we got better. Our customers were an enormous part of that process. They told us what they loved, what they didn't and what they wished they could eat. We listened, experimented and tried again. Fourteen years later, that process has given us a bank of thousands of recipes and techniques that we can genuinely call our own.
For years our tagline was “Gluten-free, but you wouldn't know it.” It still sums up something fundamental about Niche. We never wanted to make food that was good for gluten-free. We wanted to make great food, full stop.
Beyond Detail and Imitation
More Than Gluten-Free
Somewhere along the way, what started as Marc's problem stopped being about Marc.
The more people we met, the more we realised how different everyone's experience of food can be. We heard from people with coeliac disease, people living with serious food allergies and intolerances, parents trying to keep their children safe, people managing several dietary requirements at once and people who had simply become used to being the difficult person at the table. We don't think anyone should feel like that here. We have sometimes described Niche as the friendly face of free-from. Ask the question. Tell us what you need. Tell us what worries you. We may not always be able to accommodate absolutely everything, but we'll listen, we'll understand why you're asking and we'll never make you feel like a nuisance for asking it. Sometimes simply being heard makes an enormous difference.
That listening has changed Niche too. We chose not to use oats or deglutenised wheat products because we knew they remained problematic for some of the people who trusted us. In 2019 we went further and removed peanuts, tree nuts and sesame completely from our kitchens.
We didn't do that because we wanted a longer list of things we don't use. We did it because we wanted more people to be able to sit around the same table.
Today our guests are wonderfully diverse. Some come to us because they have coeliac disease or food allergies. Others come with someone who does. And many have no dietary requirements whatsoever. One of our favourite things is discovering that somebody has eaten an entire meal with us without even realising Niche is gluten-free.
That's exactly how it should be.
Our Promise
Our promise is actually quite simple: great food, genuine hospitality and complete peace of mind.
We take the complicated things — ingredients, sourcing, allergens, procedures, training and food safety — extremely seriously so that, hopefully, our guests don't have to spend their evening thinking about them.
Because once you're sitting at the table, we want Niche to feel like what it is: a restaurant. Somewhere to eat really well, have a drink, laugh, celebrate, catch up with somebody you haven't seen for ages and enjoy being looked after.
Dietary requirements may be the reason some people find us. They shouldn't have to define the experience once they're here.
100% free-from gluten, sesame, peanuts, tree nuts and oats.
100% Free-from
Gluten
Sesame
Peanuts
Tree Nuts
Oats
The Devil is in the Detail
Be Part of Our Next Chapter
Looking back, we’re incredibly proud of how far we’ve come.
What began as a small neighbourhood restaurant has grown into something we could never have imagined—a place where exceptional food, genuine hospitality and complete peace of mind come together for thousands of guests every year.
Yet, despite everything we’ve achieved, it still feels as though we’re only just getting started.
There is so much more to learn, so many more people to welcome and so many more communities we hope to reach. Every new chapter brings fresh opportunities to raise standards, inspire confidence and continue redefining what free-from dining can be.
Whether you’re visiting us for the very first time or have been part of our journey from the beginning, we’d be delighted to welcome you.
Because our story is still being written—and we’d love you to be part of it.
Exceptional food. Warm hospitality. Complete peace of mind.
Welcome to Niche
Beyond Detail and Imitation
Thank You
Niche has never been the work of one or two people. Hundreds of people have left their fingerprints on this place over the years and helped make it what it is today.
To every member of our team, past and present, thank you. To the chefs who persevered when a recipe wasn't quite right, and the front-of-house teams who have welcomed, listened, laughed, calmed nerves, remembered birthdays and somehow kept smiling through very busy services, you are part of Niche.
The same is true of our suppliers, producers, partners and friends. Some have been with us for years. You've found things for us that weren't easy to find, listened to some fairly unusual requests, challenged us, helped us solve problems and supported what we're trying to do.
And most importantly, our customers. Whether you've eaten with us once or a hundred times, travelled across London or across the world to find us, celebrated something important, recommended us to somebody else or simply popped in for dinner on a Tuesday night — thank you.
You've told us when we've got things right and, just as importantly, when we haven't. Both have helped shape Niche.
We genuinely wouldn't be here without you.
Moments That Matter
We talk a lot about food, but over the years we've realised that what people often remember most is how a restaurant made them feel.
Birthdays are celebrated here. Anniversaries are toasted. People get engaged. Families reunite. Friends who haven't seen one another for far too long finally get around the same table again.
At the time of writing, more than 120 birthdays, anniversaries and special occasions were celebrated at Niche in a single month. We find that quite extraordinary.
People choose to share some of the important moments in their lives with us, and being trusted with those moments is something we never take for granted. Every guest becomes a little part of the story of Niche, just as, for an evening at least, we get to become a little part of theirs.
That's hospitality. And it's why we still love doing this.
The Devil is in the Detail
Where We Are Going
Fourteen years is a long time in restaurants, and the journey certainly hasn't always been plain sailing.
We've had wonderful years and difficult ones, made good decisions and some we'd probably make differently today — life in general is like that. And then, of course, there was the pandemic, which was pretty testy for almost everyone working in hospitality. Like so many independent restaurants, there were some pretty hairy moments when we genuinely didn't know what the future would look like.
We were fortunate to come through it. Sadly, some other brilliant independent restaurants and gluten-free businesses didn't.
Over the years we've watched, worked alongside and been inspired by some fantastic people who have helped move gluten-free food forward in this country. They challenged perceptions, created choice where there had been very little and helped build the community and industry that exists today. We've all played a part in changing what gluten-free can be.
And it's genuinely exciting to see new gluten-free businesses emerging. We want them to succeed. We want somewhere else to go out for dinner too! Exclusively gluten-free restaurants are still few and far between, and the more there are, the better it is for all of us. We know how difficult it is to build one of these businesses, so where we can encourage, recommend or support others doing it well, we will.
There's room for all of us and, frankly,it's just good karma.
We're incredibly grateful still to be here, doing what we love, and proud of what Niche has become.
And now we're ready for the next chapter.
In 2026 we took Niche beyond the restaurant, launching delivery and opening our dedicated Events Kitchen in Hackney. It means we can now bring our food to homes, offices, parties and events across London, as well as welcoming people through the doors in Angel.
And we have bigger plans. We want to open more Niche restaurants and take everything we've learned over the past fourteen years to new places and new audiences.
The world of free-from has changed enormously since we started. What was once considered niche — excuse the rather obvious pun — has become increasingly mainstream. Perhaps the thing that excites us most is that many people now walk through our doors completely oblivious to the fact that we're a gluten-free restaurant.
They've simply heard we're a good restaurant
A note from Marc
Niche has taken me somewhere I never expected.
What began as a restaurant and, if I'm truthful, a fairly selfish desire to be able to eat safely in my own kitchen has shaped much of what I've gone on to do in food, travel, healthcare and beyond.
But the greatest education hasn't come from books or qualifications. It has come from people.
Our customers, our teams, people living with allergies and coeliac disease, charities, campaigners, families, colleagues and friends have challenged my thinking and changed some of my views along the way.
I'm still a foodie. I'm still a restaurateur. I'm still a commercial businessman. But I've learned that food can do much more than feed people. It can bring us together, give someone confidence, remove anxiety and sometimes simply make somebody feel normal again.
I never expected to be saying things like that when we opened a little restaurant in Angel fourteen years ago. We've had thousands of reviews over the years and there was certainly a time when it felt as though anyone armed with a phone had suddenly become a restaurant critic! What we really didn't expect were the personal letters, messages and emails from people genuinely thanking us for what we're doing.
Those have been incredibly touching. In a world that can sometimes feel increasingly focused on transactional service, being thanked for warm, inclusive and genuine hospitality really means something to me.
When something develops a genuine purpose, somehow you can find a bit of your own purpose in it too.
We're certainly not finished yet. And if you got this far down the page, thank you.I hope you have a wonderful time at Niche.
Marc
