NONGLUTEN #003: A few NYC restaurants | A few products | Craig LaBan
Which Kewpie is safe and which is poison? Off-menu homemade gf tagliatelle in Fort Greene. Plus: an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer's restaurant critic.
A FEW NYC RESTAURANTS
Gregory’s 26 Corner Taverna
Greek | Astoria
I can’t pretend I’ve been to all the tavernas in Astoria. But I’ve been to Gregory’s—a lot—and I’ve determined that I don’t care how it stacks up against the others. Relaxed, inexpensive, and generous, Gregory’s isn’t just my ideal Greek restaurant; it’s basically my ideal restaurant.
If you steer clear of pita and fried food, you’ve basically got run of the whole menu. Do the mezedes come with crudité? No. That’s okay—just get grape leaves. Sorted. The taramasalata, by the way, is gluten-free, and really good. (Often it’s thickened with bread). If grape leaves aren’t your thing, pile the dips alongside perfect golden-brown chicken souvlaki; herby, red wine-marinated pork souvlaki; or grilled (not fried) calamari.
On a winter’s day, there’s nothing better than the weekend lunch special of gemista—roasted bell peppers stuffed with plump, flavorful rice and ground meat. Stuffed peppers can be truly horrendous in the wrong hands; these are pure comfort. On a summer’s night, grilled branzino, potatoes, and horta (stewed greens) is about as good a dinner as you can hope to have in New York. I ate it last July on the hottest night of the year, outside, no fan, no AC, on the partially enclosed patio—just me and Lauren, some friends, a carafe of house wine, a grilled branzino, and humid, stagnant summer air. What a memory.
LaRina Pastificio & Vino
Italian | Fort Greene
There’s a weird trend in New York of really good Italian restaurants offering homemade gluten-free pasta and not telling anyone. But all you have to do is ask—and at LaRina, excellent gf tagliatelle awaits those who do. The kitchen is super aware of cross-contamination and both prepares and boils the pasta separately. From there, you can go a few directions: ragù, aglio e olio, something seasonal…the menu changes a lot, but it’s kind of fun to go in blind. Remember, you didn’t even know there was gf pasta until you asked!
We’ve had some solid salads and antipasti—including a memorable vitello tonnato—but it’s really all about the pasta. And recently, out of nowhere, one of the most creative gluten-free desserts I’ve seen in the city. What LaRina calls meringata turned out to be shards of hibiscus meringue arranged around a pool of passionfruit curd, accented with slices of ripe pear. It was electric: not only a thoughtful composition of dueling colors, textures, and flavors, but an appropriately fresh jolt after bowls of secondi-sized primi.
This all comes at a price, but if you stay focused on pasta and don’t get sidetracked by words like “castelfranco” or “stracciatella,” you can keep things reasonable and still check out that meringue. Most restaurants don’t have homemade gf pasta this good or gf desserts this interesting, let alone both.
For All Things Good
Oaxacan | Bed-Stuy
Those who know me know that I love For All Things Good, and I really do not understand why it’s not talked about more. It’s the neighborhood spot we went most before Lauren’s diagnosis, and the neighborhood spot we go most now. This is the rare restaurant that is equally great at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and every single thing is gluten-free except the conchas they just started offering.
Super high-quality masa nixtamalized in-house forms the basis of basically everything. At breakfast or brunch, the chilaquiles are exceptional, particularly with all possible add-ons—salty-oozy-crispy griddled chihuahua cheese, sliced avocado, and a fried egg. An order of those plus an espresso poured into horchata? You’re set for the rest of your life.
At lunch, I like the gringa—two 6-inch-ish tortillas sandwiching smoky pineapple-studded mushrooms al pastor, served with guacamole. The tetelas—triangular stuffed masa pockets—are also a good choice, as are the wide, crisp tlayuditas (especially black bean-avocado, which features the addictive house-made salsa macha).
Finally, at dinner—always the chillest meal at FATG—potato and hibiscus seasoned like chorizo fill my favorite quesadilla (choriflor) and chorizo seasoned like chorizo fills my favorite taco (chorizo verde). Sometimes I get a mezcal paloma; sometimes just a Topo Chico. Both work to toast an impressive feat in casual all-day Oaxacan dining. See you there.
A FEW PRODUCTS
1. Xilli Mole Negro
For All Things Good pretty much has it all, but there is one thing it doesn’t have: mole. I love mole, and I was dismayed to discover early on in this journey that it’s not always gluten-free. I mean, anything with as many ingredients as this is risky, right? But mole specifically sometimes contains bread or breadcrumbs, and I don’t know how many restaurants—with the exception of Claro—are making their own gf paste. Those who aren’t may not know every ingredient in whatever mole paste they’ve sourced.
So mole might be off the cards at many Mexican restaurants, but it’s within reach at home thanks to shoppy-shop fixture Xilli. The mole negro is my favorite, but their mole poblano is also gluten-free and also great. We reach for this the day after Thanksgiving for turkey mole tacos; we make this Melissa Clark turkey meatball recipe but sub cilantro for basil and cotija for parm and serve it in mole; we fry eggs in it like shakshuka. Just note that it needs to be thinned with some stock—and it’s pretty salty, so use something low-sodium.
$19.99 for a 10oz. jar at Xilli, or find it at your local shoppy shop.
2. Niama Gluten Free Orzo
I don’t even like orzo that much, but it’s funny—now that we can’t buy normal orzo, anytime I see a gluten-free version, I get it. So that’s how we’ve tried three brands in one year, and this is the best one yet. Again we turn to Queen Melissa, whose one-pot orzo with spinach and feta might be the perfect treatment. I should warn that it did turn to mush the next day when reheated, but both of us actually liked it even more this way.
What else would I make? This Ali Slagle recipe for lemon-dill meatballs with orzo is really great. I’d use it in avgolemono once egg prices chill out (for that, I’ll call on Diane Kochilas). And maybe I’d experiment with an “orzotto.” I must actually like orzo more than I think.
Tough to find online, but here’s their website. I got it at Athena Gourmet Market in Astoria (after lunch at Gregory’s…)
3. Sunrite Jamaican Bammy
I’m sorry, cause here’s another one that’s not easy to find online—but I want to spread the word about bammy more generally, even if you can’t find this brand. An essential accompaniment to escovitch fish in Jamaica, bammy is often referred to as “cassava flatbread,” but I’d describe it more as a cassava cake. You bake or (more commonly) fry them, so they get a crisp golden-brown exterior and a chewy interior the consistency of mochi. That lovely chew can come, in part, from a pre-cook soak in coconut milk.
Keep an eye out at your local Caribbean market. We serve it with escovitch, or with grilled fish…pretty much always with fish. I think it’d be great with curry, too. If you see bammy at a Jamaican restaurant, make sure to check whether it’s deep- or pan-fried (and you probably can’t get escovitch). Sunrite makes packets of smaller bammies as well as a larger size.
We get ours at Green Mango Tree in Crown Heights.
BONUS: A WORD ON KEWPIE
I don’t have a great handle on how well-known this is, but I just want to make sure NONGLUTEN’s readership knows that only the Kewpie produced for the American market (above left) is gluten-free. (And certified). The Kewpie from Japan (above right), in the squishy bottle that comes in a plastic wrapper, contains malt vinegar and is not gluten-free.
I have no idea which is more common in stateside Japanese restaurant kitchens, but probably a good idea to double-check if you’re gonna get something mayonnaisey.
Every April, Lauren & I head down to Philly for a day around the Middle Child “Gallerytessen” charity auction, to which she always contributes something. (For those who don’t know, Middle Child is one of Philly’s best sandwich shops). This year, with Lauren’s celiac to consider, I thought we might be more limited in where to eat—but I couldn’t have been more wrong.
It turns out that longtime Philadelphia Inquirer restaurant critic Craig LaBan has a personal stake in making sure the city’s gluten-free options are well-documented: his daughter was diagnosed with celiac disease in 2021. As a result, anyone looking for a great gluten-free meal in Philly has the meticulously researched, well-informed recommendations of a James Beard-winning restaurant critic at their disposal. And his domain is one of the most exciting and gf-friendly food scenes in the country.
Craig hasn’t only put together an extensive and deeply thoughtful guide to gluten-free dining in Philly, he also includes a succinct rundown of gf-friendliness in an info box at the end of his regular weekly reviews. I cannot stress enough how unique this is in legacy food media, and how lucky the people of Philadelphia are to have this resource.
Armed with Craig’s intel, we had dinner at the unbelievable Southern Thai restaurant Kalaya, which we had eaten at a couple years prior and were thrilled (and surprised) to learn is almost entirely gluten-free. We enjoyed stunning dumplings delicately shaped like little birds and purple flowers; chewy chive cakes fried to a perfect crisp; mind-expanding calamari seasoned with curry and lime leaf—and that’s just appetizers. (As a sidenote, I recommend the recent Chef’s Table episode featuring Kalaya’s chef, Nok Suntaranon).
Anyway—we touch on Kalaya and much more in the following interview. It was a pleasure to talk to Craig, and because we spoke over Google Meet, I can confirm that he looks exactly like the photo.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
LP: So, I feel like we have a lot to talk about, but I guess the first thing I’ll ask is just—when was your daughter diagnosed? Within the past few years, right?
CL: I think it’s been four years now since she got the call from her doctor. And my daughter’s a baker, she has been a professional baker—she’s a grad student in hospitality now—but baking is still her passion. It was devastating. I will never forget the moment she got off the phone and just crumbled into tears. We just felt the world spinning for her. And, you know, immediately, we got in the car and we drove across town to a place called Taffets, which was a wonderful mainstay for our gluten-free baking scene. We loaded up on baguettes and gluten-free pasta, and they had these loaves that were made with quinoa—and that was sort of the beginning.
How much did you know about celiac prior to her diagnosis?
Very little. I mean, what I knew was that people with celiac couldn’t have gluten, but I didn’t know the degree of magnitude of attention that has to be paid—and that’s where the whole thing gets really confusing. Because there are so many places that say, “We have gluten-free offerings, we cook gluten-free food, we know gluten-free people,” all the time, but that doesn’t always work for people with celiac. And people with celiac have different levels of sensitivity as well.
Yeah—does your daughter have a fairly severe reaction when she eats gluten by accident or…
She has an immediate reaction. She knows when she gets a gluten exposure—she feels nauseous and gets primarily a lot of bad headaches. And, you know, I’m not a medical expert, but I think it makes you vulnerable to other conditions, other gastrointestinal things. She’s eliminated gluten from her diet, but still has all these things that flare up. It makes you vulnerable, and it changes your body chemistry. It is a lifestyle change, for sure.
So during this whole period, was your daughter ever living at home with you?
During periods—she’s 26 years old now, so she’s post-college, but she’s had a lot of in-between experiences when she’ll come home and be with us.
So you’ve had to deal with managing it in your home kitchen, as well.
Well, we do, yes, and that’s tricky because we don’t have a gluten-free home. We don’t eat gluten-free when she’s not here, but when she comes we clean the whole kitchen, and we run everything through the dishwasher. It’s a big effort, but we love having her home, and we’ll do anything to make sure that she’s safe and happy. And cooking, in itself, has not been that hard.
Right, I agree.
I’ve found all kinds of ways of recreating things, or just different approaches to food. But we eat out a lot.
Sure, well, you have to, right? How many nights a week are you eating out for work?
Five or six.
And do you ever take her along?
Oh, often, but it just depends where she’s at in her space. Sometimes she feels like she’s just been taking too many risks at places, and just would rather stay home. I have to keep going, but, you know, we’ll always assess the options somewhere whether she’s with us or not.
How has all this changed the way that you view the Philly dining scene more generally? And like, when you’re eating out—I mean, I feel like even when I’m not with my wife I immediately start scanning the menu for gluten-free stuff, and I almost feel like I can’t order anything else. I have to remind myself, “Hold on, you can chill out tonight.”
Yeah, right? As long as you brush your teeth when you come home.
Which I always do.
Well, for me, it’s just represented a continued evolution for restaurants in general—a greater awareness of dietary restrictions and how serious they are. I did a whole sidebar story with one of the Stephen Starr restaurants, Parc, which is the busiest restaurant in all of Philadelphia—
That’s the one right on Rittenhouse Square?
Yes, correct. So he owns, you know, Pastis, and—
Oh, what else did he just buy here? Babbo, right?
Yeah, he just bought Babbo. He’s a big player in New York as well. They do an outstanding job of handling dietary restrictions. Interestingly enough, a friend of mine—this is like ten years ago—his daughter who is allergic to nuts had a really big issue at a Starr restaurant. And to their credit, as an organization, they have systematically created ways to minimize risks for diners at the restaurant.
They have a very intricate system that I sort of detail in this story—color-coded things, extra levels of communication from the table to the manager to the kitchen, details about who carries a plate out to the table. What do they say? Do they wash their hands before they carry it? All these things are baked into their process.
That’s the sign of a restaurant group that has resources, obviously, but it’s also a good thing because those kinds of places set good practices for the industry. Best practices are watched by the better groups.
We have come such a long way in acknowledging that diners have dietary restrictions, and that people not only need to take it seriously, but that we should be taking it seriously so that everybody has access to these dining experiences that are a part of our culture and our life. The inclusivity of restaurants has grown, and to me it’s a sign of hospitality. Even being a vegetarian used to be a big ask, and now that’s all completely normal.
Something that I find interesting is that the Venn diagram between restaurants that cater to vegetarians (and particularly vegans) and restaurants that cater to gluten-free diners—sometimes that’s a really small little middle section there. You know, Superiority Burger here is actually not a very good gluten-free destination, for example.
Yeah, I think sometimes restaurants have to choose. We have a very excellent restaurant in Philadelphia called Vedge, and they were one of the pioneers in vegan cooking. But they never billed themselves as vegan—they said plant-forward, plant-based—and so anyone with any kind of allergy thought that that was a place that they could go.
And they were like, “No,” you know, “We are good at this one thing that we’re doing. And it involves a lot of cashews.” There are very few places that try to do it all. My daughter actually worked at a bakery in Philadelphia called P.S. & Co.—
Yeah, we tried it the other day—it’s great!
It’s gluten-free and it’s vegan, all organic, and they do try to do it all. She was a baker there for a summer.
Yeah, the baked goods were really good, and it’s true—to pull that off, dairy-free and I think, was it not soy-free? It’s impressive.
At some point, I think it’s okay for restaurants to choose and just be clear and specific about who can and who can’t eat what, you know? And some restaurants are just inclusive in that, you would consider them to be mainstream restaurants but they have options all throughout their menu for the different people seeking different things.
If you’re a very good restaurant person, hospitality is at the core of what you do. You are serving people, you are welcoming people, and you’re trying to make their lives better through a food experience in your home, basically. So to be thoughtful, at least, and do what you do correctly, is what’s important to me. I don’t think every place can be for everybody.
That’s true, and that’s something I think my wife recognizes, too. We would love to still be able to go to Superiority—it’s one of our favorite places—but you have to take a couple Ls when you get a diagnosis like this, and it’s okay that not every restaurant is for everybody.
Absolutely.
But that does bring up—I wanted to talk a little bit about dedicated gluten-free restaurants vs. non-dedicated restaurants. We primarily eat at non-dedicated places, and pretty uniformly have positive experiences. But if you spend any time on the online celiac forums or even just looking at Find Me Gluten Free reviews, it does seem like that’s not the case for a lot of people. Some only go to dedicated restaurants; others won’t eat out at all. The range of experiences is interesting, right?
Different people have different sensitivities, and different risk tolerances based on what they want out of their food life. I think it can be a very discouraging thing to deal with a restriction—and to feel so bad if you take a wrong step—so a lot of people feel better safe than sorry. But if you live in a place like Philadelphia or New York where, you know, restaurants are culture, restaurants are life—that’s where you see the world—you sort of start taking these steps, and if you have good experiences at a place, you can keep following up and slowly expand that circle.
I have mixed feelings about Find Me Gluten Free, because I will find places all the time that I think are doing a really good job, but they’re small independent places, and my daughter will be like, “It’s not on Find Me Gluten Free; I don’t want to go.”
I always defer to her comfort level, because that’s important, but I do think the way our culture’s now built on apps and user-driven data—if you go to any website for any service, you’re gonna find a no-star or one-star review that’s gonna scare the crap out of you. And there could be 90% positive things, but these bad things will scare you, and you’ve gotta look at how recent it was, did the business owner reply—
Oh yeah, look at the user’s other reviews—
You can call the restaurant and say, “Listen, I want to come, but I’m a little concerned about something I read. How are you handling this now?” Learning to advocate for yourself as a diner is one of the hardest but most important things that you can do. Because I know my daughter often feels like an imposition, like she’s asking for special treatment. And it’s not—”humiliating” isn’t the right word, it’s just—
That’s the word my wife uses!
It’s demoralizing. But I think at the same time, as you grow into your new status, situation, lifestyle—you can learn to steel yourself a little bit to ask the right questions, and to know the information you need to know about how places handle certain things.
And also, you get a tone from somebody on the telephone. If they have a phone and you talk to somebody—is this a welcoming place? You can learn that from that human interaction, which I think we too often just avoid now.
I do think for people who want to go beyond their kitchen, but who are trepidatious about it cause they read something on Find Me Gluten Free—make that extra call if it’s a place you’re interested in. Have a conversation with somebody. And then they’ll be looking out for you when you come!
Well, I keep coming back to this question of: What kind of role do you think restaurant critics should play in addressing gluten-free dining? When restaurants we want to go to aren’t on Find Me Gluten Free, I do make calls and send e-mails, but I also want to be able to look to mainstream and legacy food media. And I love our restaurant critics in New York City, but their reviews don’t really address the concerns of this community whatsoever.
Are we relegated to only using TikTok and Reels for this information? Because I don’t want to melt my brain with that shit! For the NY Times or NY Mag to include that info at the bottom of reviews like you do, it seems like a relatively low lift.
But I also understand that the personal connection is important, and finding somebody of your stature who understands gluten-free dining on that level is rare. So what can the mainstream food media do better to fill that gap do you think? Or the other question is: Should they have to at all?
I’ve been a food writer for a long time—three decades—and, you know, I cover the world of food, so that includes a whole lot of dietary restrictions, allergies, ingredients, all those things. I’m not a nutritionist—nutrition writing has never been a strong focus of mine—but you have to be aware of those things. And there are just so many things to keep tabs on.
So, not necessarily in defense of those places that don’t make a special effort to cover gluten-free, but we as food writers are constantly thinking about the full world of peoples’ dietary needs, whether they’re health restrictions, preferences, trends, fads, or whatever—there’s a lot to keep tabs on. And I think that it does help to have a personal connection that sort of turns on that light as something you really do need to pay attention to on a deeper level.
But you have to pick and choose what you’re gonna do on a weekly basis. I file reviews every week, and I have a standard information box of details like address, phone number, price range, and wheelchair accessibility. Interestingly enough, we used to think parking information was really important, but nobody drives anywhere anymore, so we got rid of that.
Space is always limited, time is limited—you have to pick and choose your battles. For many years, I mean for, like, decades, I used to measure sound in restaurants. And I used to publish decibel ratings. And eventually, I felt like they were not becoming useful, because every restaurant was too loud!
[Laughing]
So when I write a restaurant review, there’s always a sort of snapshot-of-a-moment-in-time factor, where, you know, I think I accurately reflect my experiences, but tomorrow’s another day—it’s more like a theater production than a movie. And the same is true with how people handle delicate things like gluten-free or allergies. Did they clean the pans right? Did they mix up the squeeze bottles of sauces? Did somebody touch something without changing their gloves? With those kinds of things, there’s always some measure of risk.
But my audience has replied to me that they really appreciate that [gluten-free info] feature, and it ends up being a line in the box unless it’s a bigger aspect of what the restaurant does, and I can dig a little deeper into it.
I mean, I can’t tell you how helpful that would be for me, as a consumer of restaurant criticism in New York, to have just that one sentence on whether or not a restaurant can accommodate gluten-free diners.
I appreciate that. I’ve been boiling it down to the essential questions—I say, “Do you have gluten-free options for diners who are sensitive, who need to be careful of cross-contamination?” And I’ll ask, “What percentage of your menu is available to them? With or without modifications? And what are your basic practices to avoid cross-contamination?”
Yeah, so after your review meals, you’re calling the restaurant to ask those followup questions?
Oh, I do extensive interviews with people after my visits. Usually they’re, like, hour-and-a-half, two-hour interviews, and we’ll really go through everything about the restaurant. I’ll ask them about their gluten-free practices, and it becomes that line.
So the response has been really positive—did you add that information to the box after your daughter’s diagnosis, or was it something you were doing before?
When we re-booted after the pandemic, it was a chance to reassess a lot of things. And we’re constantly in the process of that at the Inquirer, and all throughout media. How do we do what we do better? How do we speak to audiences that we’re not reaching yet? And I can tell you, the series that I did [about gluten-free dining]—now that we’re primarily a digital media group, you see online engagement—the gluten-free package was just, like, woah. It was really, really obvious that this was something that people wanted.
I have a relationship with my readers already, about their restaurant experiences in general. I think there’s a trust; I’m very grateful and honored that I have this relationship with my readers. I mean, I’ve been doing it a long time—there is that trust that’s already built, so I do think that having somebody with that sort of authority and pulpit is really helpful.
It’s really helpful. Something I want to dig into more—you were saying you have to pick your battles, so to speak, and that you can’t address everything. But gluten does have, like, a different status than the other allergens and other restrictions—
It does.
Yeah, and I’m curious why you think that is? Why is gluten on this different kind of pedestal than dairy-free or vegetarianism or soy-free, or nuts? What is the difference, to you?
I think it’s a matter of numbers. In the discussion I had with the Starr restaurant group, they could basically rank the most common things that people were asking about, and gluten-free was number one. And then, I think, shellfish and nuts. I don’t remember what the ranking was, but those were the top three. But gluten is the number-one thing that people are concerned with, and—why now? It’s a matter of more diagnoses because doctors are more easily able to identify things.
I want to make sure we talk about some more Philly restaurants, and I want to talk about Kalaya. Our meal there the other night was extraordinary—I mean, I was almost moved to tears at points. But do you know why she uses gluten-free soy sauce? Or why it’s so gluten-free friendly there?
Gluten-free soy sauce costs at least 30 to 50% more than using standard wheat-based soy sauce, so for a big restaurant that’s cranking out a lot of food, you’re really jacking up your food costs of an elemental ingredient, and that’s an economic decision for a lot of people. But Thai food—her Thai food, from Southern Thailand—it uses limited amounts of soy sauce. And in addition, there’s just a lot of gluten-free soy sauce available in Thailand. It’s a traditional ingredient. And so, she saw it early on as an easy possibility: it was always automatically 90% gluten-free, so she was like, “Well if I just used some gluten-free condiments, then it could be 98% gluten free.”
But to be faced with a menu of that caliber, and to be told you can eat basically everything, and it’s not a dedicated place—not a formally gluten-free restaurant—it’s just crazy. I mean, it’s amazing.
It’s one of the many things about that restaurant that’s so special. It’s one of the great restaurants in America by any measure. So, for her to do that is really wonderful. It’s just a bunch of circumstances coming together, and then her desire to make sure that it’s gluten-free. But I do find that a number of Thai places in our city are able to do it.
And then how about these two—or more?—exceptional Chinese places that are able to do everything gluten-free?
I can think of at least three of them; there are maybe more. Interestingly enough, mostly Szechuan-oriented places.
Which is something that we really miss.
With a restaurant like DanDan, for example, she [co-owner Catherina Huang] has a son who has gluten issues, so she’s like, “Well, I want my son to be able to eat at my restaurant.” So she was able to make those connections.
I’m trying to remember why EMei, which is really the best Szechuan restaurant in the area, [does it]—but they’ve systematized how they do it. And there’s a place in the suburbs called Mama Wong, where, again, the owner is gluten-intolerant, so she had the desire to do that.
But as you get really advanced in eating out, you understand there are certain condiments that are red-flag condiments, like fermented black beans, for example. Somebody has to alter that, you know, and they have to know: fermented black beans—not good. You have to understand the nuances of—gluten-free soy sauce is a little saltier, so we have to modify our recipes so that they taste the same. All these details, people who are really good at it have thought it through.
It’s amazing. In New York, we don’t have anywhere Szechuan, that I know of, that does it like that…
Interestingly enough, you sort of do—Han Dynasty.
Yeah, Han Dynasty, but so little of the menu is available gluten-free.
Well, and some days they do, some days they don’t.
It just seems like Philly is a really wonderful gluten-free city, and I’m looking forward to coming down more. And your daughter is lucky she has that to come home to.
She has a whole list. Her homecoming dinner is almost always takeout from DanDan.
This has been such a great and wide-ranging conversation—I was looking forward to it, and yeah, I really appreciate you taking the time.
So if someone gluten-free is coming to Philly for just one night like we did, would your advice to them be: Kalaya is the number-one spot you have to go to?
Kalaya’s one of my number-one restaurants period. You look at my top ten list, you know, Kalaya is there, Zahav does an amazing job, they’re really, really good at it. Off the top of my head, almost all of my top restaurants are really on top of offering good experiences for people with dietary restrictions. But Kalaya is on all of my lists.
NEXT TIME ON NONGLUTEN…
THE NONGLUTEN GUIDE TO ROME
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all illustrations by Lauren Martin | photo of (kind of) Craig LaBan courtesy of Craig LaBan
The Kewpie disparity is REAL! And honestly needs to be blasted everywhere! 📣📣