Pub fare

When we arrived at our Chelsea hotel, it was already after 8 p.m., and we needed a meal. We took a moment to appreciate the spectacular view from our 45th-floor room and then did a quick Google for restaurants within a few blocks that might be open for dinner. We decided on a pub a couple of blocks away, where I knew it would be difficult to find anything gluten-free

Smithfield is a classic British-style pub and sports bar. When we walked in, the TVs were blasting a baseball playoff game between the Yankees and the Royals. The Yankees fans were already drunk and loud. I wasn’t in the mood for a loud sports bar, but I was hungry.

Fish ’n’ chips is one of my gluten Achilles heels. When I’m traveling and hungry, nothing sounds better than a pile of deep-fried food and some tartar sauce. I ordered the fish ’n’ chips despite some perfectly reasonable salad options. Sometimes, on a fall evening at a British pub, a salad won’t do.

I peeled off about half of the fluffy, greasy breading and ate mostly the cod and fries. I was not off to a great start on my quest for gluten-free dining in New York City, but at least I didn’t eat all the breading. And I brought along a Gluten Digest supplement for just such occasions.

Breakfast Buffet

The Hyatt Chelsea Place offers a breakfast buffet, and we added it on to avoid too many morning decisions. Shockingly, the coffee was Seattle’s Best, which I have not seen in Seattle since the 1990s.

My husband pointed out that there were gluten-free bagels on the pastry display, but I skipped that option. I made a breakfast of eggs, sausages, fruit, and yogurt. Breakfast buffets are probably not safe for folks with Celiac, but for someone with a low-grade sensitivity like me, there are always enough options to create a meal. The great thing about breakfast is that there are always eggs.

We wanted to visit a New York diner during our visit. We briefly considered checking out the iconic Tom’s Diner but then realized it would be a 45-minute transit adventure. On the third morning of our stay, we opted for the diner on the same block as our hotel. We sat in a vinyl booth, and I ordered a standard two-egg breakfast without toast. The coffee was weak, and the food was so-so, but it was a New York Diner, so it met the requirements.

Cobb salads

Our first full day in NYC involved taking a subway uptown to visit the Met. I was delighted by the new subway toll gates. All I had to do was wave my phone at the card reader, and the gate opened. The last time we visited, in 2017, there were still cards and finicky turnstiles involved.

Central Park was full of joggers and groups of teenagers on field trips. The vendors and caricature artists were setting up for the day. The sun was shining. It was a perfect fall day to explore the city on foot.

When we go to museums, we are not great at spending hours giving the artworks their fair attention. We breeze through. We’d done the Met before, but this time, we found a wing or two we may have missed on the last breeze-through. There was a special exhibit of Mandalas, which reminded me of my childhood among the hippies of Idaho. Mandalas were a thing in the 1970s.

Every time I visit the Met I feel like I’m inside one of my favorite childhood novels, ‘From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.‘ In it, two children run away from home and spend the night inside the Met. Though I never visited New York until I was an adult, the landscape is familiar, and I picture myself hiding in a bathroom stall to get locked in when the museum closes. I suspect the security may be tighter than the novel implies.

After the museum, we took another walk through Central Park. My husband works for Nordstrom Corporate, and we were on a side quest to visit their new-ish store near the bottom of the park. New York City was vibrating and bustling on an early fall morning. It was beautiful to see how the city had emerged from the dark days of the pandemic.

Despite my appreciation for an employee discount, I find Nordstrom a difficult place to shop. If I want, say, a skirt, there are multiple floors to peruse—all organized by brand. I don’t have any brand loyalty to speak of, so the layout immediately makes me feel overwhelmed. I was interested in upgrading my outfit for our fancy dinner that night, but I had no luck.

Instead, we had lunch at the Nordstrom cafe, where I enjoyed a ginger and berry mocktail alongside my Cobb Salad. I don’t know if Cobb Salad is primarily found East of the Mississippi, but I rarely see one on the menu in Seattle. It’s an excellent, hearty choice if you’re avoiding gluten and enjoy bacon.

The next day, we visited Liberty and Ellis Islands (my first time) and made our way to the meat packing district for lunch. We found a bar with sidewalk seating, and I ordered another Cobb Salad. I wondered if I would eat a Cobb Salad every day, but that was the last. We were lucky to have salads-on-sidewalks weather in mid-October, with highs around 70 Fahrenheit.

Birthday dinner: Traif

My husband chose a restaurant in Brooklyn for his 50th birthday dinner, so we made our way from Chelsea to Williamsburg and stopped at a pub for a pre-dinner drink. I was only drinking alcohol sparingly on this trip, but I appreciated the fact that the pubs we visited all had tasty cider options. I enjoy the atmosphere of a British-style pub, and it feels wrong not to have a pint of something in my hand.

Traif was fancy in a downscale, leafy way. The back sunroom where we sat felt like we were in a secret garden and not near a busy intersection next to the Williamsburg Bridge. We wanted to do the prix fixe chef’s menu, and I asked our server if it was possible to do so GF. They had a handful of marked GF options on the menu, so I would have been happy to order a la carte, but the chef agreed to modify the menu—with a warning not to ask on a busy Friday or Saturday.

The meal was delicious and not kosher as expected based on the name of the restaurant and the pig icon in the logo. I found it fascinating that in one of the densest Jewish neighborhoods in the country, the restauranteur would choose a brand that translates to “unfit to eat” in Yiddish. I suppose there’s something to be said for the appeal of what’s forbidden. But we’re not Jewish, so we were happy with pork, shellfish, duck, etc. I sadly did not make note of the six courses, but I recall some excellent, artistic plates. We were given separate desserts so my husband could have a slice of rich birthday cake while I enjoyed the budino.

Senza Gluten

On Friday night, we made reservations at Senza Gluten in Greenwich Village. Since becoming gluten-free, I’ve mainly avoided Italian restaurants. Though they usually serve risotto and other GF entrees, I love pasta, and avoiding that section of the menu feels punitive.

Senza Gluten is a fully gluten-free establishment that is celiac-friendly, and they make fresh gluten-free pasta onsite. Even in Italy, most restaurants serve rice-based pasta out of a box as the gluten-free option, so fresh pasta has been hard to come by.

The first thing they bring to the table is a basket of GF bread to eat with delightfully flavorful olive oil. I almost ignored the bread basket out of habit, but then I remembered where I was. The bread was spongy and chewy, and other than a minor texture discrepancy, it could pass for a baguette.

A family with three kids was seated at the outdoor table next to us, and when the server placed the bread basket on the table, the little girl’s eyes went wide. “Is that gluten-free?” She asked. Her mom assured her that everything was. The girl dug in with the abandon of someone who hadn’t eaten bread for a while.

Our appetizer of fried calamari was a mistake. It was crunchy and delicious, and you’d never guess the breading was gluten-free, but the portion was so large that it could have been a full meal for both of us. We ate half and asked for a box for the rest.

My pasta was also almost too much. It was fettuccine in a creamy sauce with pancetta. It was so good that I could not stop eating even after I had consumed approximately one million calories. We ordered some Brussels sprouts as a nod to vegetables, and they could have made a full meal.

We had to have the tiramisu. Despite being too full already, the dessert was the one thing I could not leave without tasting. I was not disappointed. It was better than any tiramisu I had tasted before. The replacement ladyfingers were light and spongy. The only problem was that it contained probably another one million calories in the form of cream.

I gained five pounds in four days, probably thanks to that one Italian dinner. I don’t regret a thing! New York is a great place to explore gluten-free options; many restaurants have well-labeled menus. Use caution with the cream and fried foods, and you may even enjoy the dining without having to buy new pants.