Gluten-Free New Orleans: seafood, Creole and brunch for celiacs

The places on this page fall into three groups. In the French Quarter, Muriel’s Jackson Square is on the corner of the square, beside St. Louis Cathedral; Meals from the Heart Café is inside the French Market, about 5 minutes on foot from the square; and Deanie’s Seafood is on Iberville Street, about 10 minutes on foot from Jackson Square. In the CBD, across Canal Street, Espíritu, Copper Vine and Bearcat CBD are a short walk from Canal Street, and Bearcat CBD and Espíritu are about 5 and 10 minutes on foot from The National WWII Museum. Uptown, Casamento’s and La Cocinita are a streetcar or car ride away, about 15 minutes on foot from each other. The French Quarter itself is small: the official visitors’ guide says you can cross it on foot in about 20 minutes. All walking times here are our estimate from the map.

New Orleans has no entirely gluten-free kitchen on this page, so a good day here is built from mixed kitchens, with care at every table. A day that works: breakfast at Meals from the Heart Café in the French Market, which serves New Orleans classics in vegan, gluten-free or traditional versions, in its own words: order the gluten-free versions, served over rice, and ask how the gluten-free dishes are kept apart. Walk about 5 minutes to Jackson Square and St. Louis Cathedral (open daily, 9:30am to 4pm). If you want to see St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, book the official tour before you go: entry is by guided tour only. Spend the afternoon at The National WWII Museum in the Warehouse District (daily, 9am to 5pm), then walk about 10 minutes to dinner at Espíritu, a mixed kitchen whose menu says «All items are gluten free except the tortas, tres leches, and choco flan»; its fryer, it says, only uses corn and rice flour. Keep Uptown for another day: the St. Charles streetcar runs past the Garden District to Audubon Park, and Casamento’s fries its seafood in a gluten-free batter in its own words; ask whether the fryer is shared, and ask them to leave the toast off. Its site says it reopens on Thursday 1 October, «which is looking like our final season».

In the US, “gluten-free” on packaged food is a voluntary claim under the rule of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and a product that carries it must contain less than 20 ppm of gluten. The rule covers packaged foods. For restaurant menus the FDA only recommends that a “gluten-free” claim matches its definition, so a GF on a menu is the restaurant’s own word. The Gluten Intolerance Group runs programs that go further: GFCO certifies products, which must test below 10 ppm (or below the country’s limit, if that is lower), and GFFS validation (Gluten Intolerance Group) reviews a restaurant’s policies and procedures, recipes, ingredients and training. Its Chef to Plate program is a separate, lighter one: the Gluten Intolerance Group says it is not related to the validation program, which has higher standards and an annual audit. Whatever the menu says, say you have coeliac disease every time: “celiac” is the spelling staff in the US know.

New Orleans cooks with flour: gumbo starts with a roux, po-boys come on French bread, beignets are wheat, and seafood is often fried in a wheat batter. Plain boiled crawfish, shrimp and crab are the easy part, as long as nothing was added to the boil. Fries are the classic trap, because many kitchens fry them in the same oil as breaded food, and US allergen labels must name wheat but not barley or rye, so watch for malt and beer in batters and sauces. A gluten-free menu is not a gluten-free kitchen: at every place on this page, ask how the dishes are kept apart. We haven’t checked a New Orleans hotel breakfast ourselves: ask about gluten-free breakfast when you book, and choose a room with a fridge for your own bread and snacks.