Before I was diagnosed with celiac disease in 2004, if you’d asked me to name my favorite cuisines, Japanese would’ve been high on that list. But one of the tougher things to accept about the diagnosis was that some cuisines were more off-limits than others. While wheat isn’t top of mind when you think about Japanese food, it’s omnipresent thanks to ingredients such as soy sauce, one of the “secret” sources of wheat people rarely think about.
But all those concerns go out the window at a restaurant like Nami Nori, which serves up phenomenal Japanese cuisine that is 100% gluten-free. Nami Nori was founded by three chefs — Taka Sakaeda, Jihan Lee, and Lisa Limb — who are partners in the business, all trained in fine Japanese dining and all Masa veterans. (Chef Sakaeda has celiac disease himself.) There’s now a fourth partner involved in the business, a celebrity who fell in love with the spot: Grammy Award–winning singer, songwriter, rapper, producer, and designer Pharrell.