New Edmonds restaurant to forgo wheat in recipes

EDMONDS — Chefs Kaili McIntyre and Arlene Palumbo will open a restaurant in the Firdale Village shopping center Oct. 1, and like many family restaurants, theirs will offer a selection of down-home dishes: meatloaf, pizza, mac and cheese, and fresh bread and pastry.

But unlike most or all other family eateries in the Northwest, every dish on the menu at their as-yet-unnamed eatery will be wheat- and gluten-free.

In baked goods and pastas, flours made from ingredients such as rice or potatoes will replace wheat flour. Ditto for their gravies and meatloaves, whose richness traditionally comes from regular flour or bread crumbs.

Palumbo, the restaurant's executive chef, will debut a patent-pending microbrew made from buckwheat rather than hops.

McIntyre and Palumbo learned to replace wheat flour in their recipes because they both have celiac disease, an illness that makes them allergic to foods containing wheat and wheat gluten, a mixture of proteins.

People with the disorder must eat a wheatless and gluten-free diet to avoid allergic reactions, but doctors and naturopaths often recommend such a diet as a preventive measure for people with conditions from yeast infections to autism. Vegans and health-conscious diners also try it.

"This dining is becoming more mainstream, but also the number of people diagnosed (as allergic) is increasing," said Cynthia Kupper, a registered dietitian who is executive director of the Gluten Intolerance Group in Seattle. "Some people just feel better eating this way."

Kupper said the Edmonds restaurant may be the first in the nation with a menu that is wheat- and gluten-free.

For McIntyre, the restaurant is a natural extension of the work she's been doing for five years as the owner of Kaili's Kitchen, a deli and bakery at the state Department of Transportation office complex in Shoreline. There, McIntyre debuted wheat-free cookies and cakes last year, and has since added entrées and other baked goods to a to-go case.

"I want everyone to enjoy this food, not just people with celiac disease," McIntyre said.

Sam Wylde, president of Seattle-based Ener-G, a 41-year-old company that makes wheat- and gluten-free mixes, pastas, cookies and crackers, said awareness of wheat- and gluten-free cooking began rising in the 1980s after doctors developed better methods for diagnosing the disorder.

Since then, Wylde said, the general population and an increasing list of mainstream grocers have expressed more interest in his company's and others' wheatless foods.

McIntyre's vision is slowly expanding: She already sells her foods at Nature's Way at Northgate Mall in Seattle and Manna Mills in Mountlake Terrace, and will soon distribute her biscotti at Diva Espresso stores.

The new restaurant will allow people who follow a wheat-free diet to dine out on foods they normally can't. She also plans to sell takeout food there.

"We'll do turkey with stuffing," she said. "We'll do the things that people miss."

Chef Palumbo, a Snohomish resident who studied at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., and ran two restaurants in Florida, shares McIntyre's mission.

"My goal is to make the food so good that the regular diner can't taste the difference," Palumbo said.

Jane Hodges: 425-745-7813 or jhodges@seattletimes.com