Gone are the days where eating gluten-free meant feeling like you were missing out. Today, you’ll find gluten-free menus from Michelin-starred chefs, cutting edge restaurateurs, and at trendy bistros. Here are seven favorite spots in Manhattan.
Café Clover
Featuring pretty blue leather banquettes, antiqued mirrors, dim lighting, and a charming West Village location, Café Clover is a charming destination on its own—that it boasts some of the city’s most creative and healthy dishes feels like an incredible bonus. Almost all of the items on the seasonal, local menu are gluten-free from the grassfed wagyu stripsteak to the quinoa tagliatelle. If you never miss a chance to score some nutrients, don’t miss the Garden Cocktail featuring cucumber vodka, elderflower, honey, lemon, and green juice.
Le Botaniste
This Instagram-worthy restaurant offers inventive selection of plant-based bowls and a lovely menu of sulfite-free biodynamic wines (migraine-sufferers take note). The creative team that launched Le Pain Quotidien is behind this 100% botanical, 99% organic, and gluten-free Upper East side spot with a laid-back vibe and the mantra “let food be the medicine”.
Nix
This Michelin-starred vegetarian restaurant from chef John Fraser features a buzzy lively vibe and innovative dishes that will open your eyes to the potential of plant-based dining. GF diners will have to skip a small handful of options, but will delight in the shitake “cacio e pepe” and the tandoor roasted beets.
Erin McKenna’s Bakery
A pioneer in the world of GF baking, Erin McKenna opened her bakery in 2005 to serve up delicious vegan and gluten-free baked goods. With online delivery and additional locations in Orlando and L.A., her bakery has become a mecca for people with gluten, dairy, egg, and soy sensitivities, plus kids with food allergies. Almost everything from the double chocolate chip cookies to the red velvet cupcakes items are sweetened with agave nectar and baked with coconut oil.
The Little Beet Table
Restaurants that are completely dedicated to gluten-free menus are less common than you would think. Thankfully both the casual Little Beet locations specializing in salad, grain, and rice bowls, and the more upscale Little Beet Table restaurant are havens for GF diners. We love their chipotle pork carnitas tacos, beet and chickpea burgers, and beetroot tartare served up in a light-filled Gramercy backdrop.
Hu Kitchen
“We wanted to create a restaurant where there isn’t any crap, where we cooked in the right oils, used the best sweeteners and emusifiers, with 100% grassfed beef, wild fish, and organic poultry,” says Jordan Brown co-founder of Hu Kitchen. “The concept behind the restaurant became everything that we would want to eat without any of the junk. We vowed not to use cane sugar, highly processed salt, chemical anti-caking agents, or poor quality meat and dairy.”
Senza Gluten
Gluten-free and Italian food seem to be two things that are totally incongruous—until you eat at this charming, dimly-lit Italian eatery in the West Village. Here, you can indulge in tomato topped bruchettas, lasagna bolognese, and spaghetti alle vongole that taste just as decadent as their gluten-filled counterparts served up at nearby trattorias.