Last week I dedicated the newsletter to quickly answering seven reader questions, but some questions come up so frequently that they deserve a newsletter all their own. And by far, the query that has appeared in my inbox with the greatest frequency has been about gluten-free dining.
More than 2 million Americans have been diagnosed with Celiac — though researchers estimate that far more people have the disease — and about one-third of Americans say they are trying to avoid or reduce gluten in their diets. I don’t fall into either category, but I can empathize with those who feel as if their dining options are severely limited by the ubiquity of gluten in, well, all of human existence.
You can come at this two ways. One, go to restaurants where gluten-free dining is the selling point — Senza Gluten in the West Village, Agata & Valentina and Noglu on the Upper East Side, Modern Bread & Bagel in Chelsea and the Upper West Side, and the Friedman’s chain of restaurants all come to mind. But that can be limiting, and the options often don’t live up to their gluten-full cousins. The second option, below, is to try a few restaurants I love with menus that aren’t filled with gluten land mines.
Nami Nori
One reader was elated a few weeks ago when I spotlighted the sandos at Postcard Bakery in the West Village, which are served on gluten-free bread. But the gluten-freeness doesn’t end there: Postcard is a spinoff of Nami Nori, the temaki hand roll restaurant with locations in the West Village, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and Montclair, N.J., which are also completely gluten-free restaurants, from the tempura misto starter all the way down to sesame miso chocolate chip cookies. The reason: Takahiro Sakaeda, a partner and chef at both restaurants, has Celiac disease.
