CELIACTODAY

Gluten-free foods for at-home meals are becoming tastier and easier to find in supermarkets and online stores. But, for someone with celiac disease, an invitation to dine out still often triggers a minor panic attack.

If that sounds a familiar, there’s a marvelous antidote: the newly updated second edition of The Essential Gluten-Free Restaurant Guide from Triumph Dining. It’s a must-have resource for anyone with celiac who travels frequently for pleasure or business.

The book is a guide to gluten-free dining at more than 3,900 restaurant locations throughout the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Over 1,200 of the entries are for individually owned restaurants recommended by celiacs who had eaten at them. The remaining entries are chain-restaurant locations.

Some of the chains are widely familiar to the celiac community, such as Bugaboo Creek Steak House, Naked Fish and Outback Steakhouse. Some of the chains may be less so. But there are some nice surprises among these lesser-known eateries.

For example, Biaggi’s Ristorante Italiano, a chain based mostly in the Mid-West, serves not one, but five different styles of GF pasta (capellini, farfalle, linguini, rigatoni and spaghetti).

At Wildfire, a Chicago-based steak and seafood chain, a GF bun provides a tasty foundation for a Black Angus burger, a Portobello and goat cheese sandwich, and several other lunch and dinner options.

This reviewer and his family recently had the pleasure of putting the Triumph Guide to the test in New York City.

No surprise that it listed a celiac landmark, the Risotteria, where we enjoyed the best GF breadsticks we’ve ever had, along with GF beer, pizza and homemade desserts.

But the book also led us to the fashionable Sambuca restaurant, where we enjoyed GF bread fresh out of the oven, along with GF pasta and brownies.

We also discovered the amazing Babycakes Bakery, which keeps its display cases stuffed with a dozen different GF baked items. When we visited relatives for dinner, we were able to bring a box of fresh-baked GF cupcakes.

The book is organized by state, with subsections for 23 major cities. Each listing provides location and contact details.

Independently owned eateries get a squib or two about their approach to GF dining. A section at the back of the book details the GF offerings of over 80 chains.

Throughout the book, symbols indicate restaurants that offer GF menus, GF specialty products, or 100% GF offerings (not many of those, unfortunately). The listings also are keyed by price.

Aside from such practical information, publisher Russ Cohen also provides useful commonsense tips about dining out.

In his short introductory chapters, Cohen emphasizes the “human element” of dealing with restaurant staff, including maitres d’, waiters and managers.

One example: “Don’t be afraid to say ‘allergy’.” While people with celiac know that their condition is more than an allergy, that word “can often trigger special attention” in a restaurant setting, Cohen notes.

The book also includes a restaurant review and recommendation form. Once you have the book, make sure you use the form.

Dining out might still be a challenge for celiacs. But with each edition of the Triumph Guide, it becomes a little less so.

This story originally appeared in the (November, 2007 ) issue of CeliacToday.com. It was most recently updated in (October, 2009).