Four painful nights into a visit home to Los Angeles, I sought answers to a years-long digestive mystery as one now does – by asking Dr. ChatGPT. After entering my medical history, it immediately suggested something I’d never considered, let alone taken seriously. Gluten.
My world quickly collapsed. No bread, no pizza, no bagels, no beer, no cookies, no pasta, no cake, no donuts, no pita. Not without further savaging my intestines with sleepless nights of intense suffering.
No problem, I thought. Bangkok has my back. After all, for a vegetarian of three decades, the city today is an easy place to live meatless. But wheatless? It turned out that gluten-free products are hard to find on supermarket shelves – and expensive.
“It really is a problem here, especially in Asia,” said Eric Chan, cofounder of Sarnies. “There’s no one catering to those types of diets.”
Sitting across the table from Chan at their Phrom Phong location, Sarnies head chef Luqman Hakim Hamzah plopped down a spongy, tangy loaf that looked indistinguishable from their other famous baked goods. It was freshly baked and gluten-free.
After ripping off a hunk and dabbing it with warm butter, my gastronomical despair lessened.
“I can’t tell the difference,” Hamzah said. “It actually tastes like regular bread.”
And, starting today, loaves of gluten-free bread are available at all four Sarnies in Bangkok for THB480.
Founder Ben Lee said there was a selfish reason for wanting to carve out a gluten-free corner of the menu. While not a full-blown celiac, he said too much wheat intake leaves his gut in a heavy place.
Lee noted that Sarnies’ fermented breads are already better for gut health, and the gluten-free version is consistent with their baking philosophy that strips out fillers and chemicals in favor of bread that’s “just flour, wheat, and salt.”
Hamzah said he hopes to add bagels, buns, and sourdough down the line.
Sarnies isn’t the only bakery experimenting with wheat-free fare. Over in Phra Khanong, the Deutsch-tastic NeverMind Bakery said it’s responding to a rise in demand.
“We get a lot of customers asking about gluten-free products here,” said the bakery-restaurant’s Natasha Cloete.
Dennis Riehn, head of marketing for longtime German bakery importer Schmidt, which operates NeverMind, said that there have been many more requests for gluten-free goods from hotels and businesses they supply.
When bakeries find out that they must build an entirely separate kitchen that never touches wheat to achieve full certification as 100% gluten-free, “they all back off.”
“It’s too much,” he said.
That doesn’t mean the bread from places like NeverMind or Sarnies isn’t totally gluten-free – they just can’t guarantee it.
“We actually prepare separate utensils just for the gluten-free bread,” Hamzah said. “But the oven used is the same.”
While Sarnies and Nevermind are welcome additions that will help mainstream gluten-free fare – and reduce the stigma that it’s a made-up malaise – others have been in the game longer.
Over in Soi Sukhumvit 42, Theera is billed as Bangkok’s “first gluten free and vegan bakery.”
More than just three types of bread (THB278 for a loaf), Theera serves other dietary necessities: warm fudge brownies, pancakes, waffles, and avocado toast.
Just off Ekkamai, Wild Grains Bakery has a huge delivery menu of gluten-free breads (sorghum sourdough baguette THB250, sundried tomato & basil loaf THB1,100) and all the savory Cs: cakes, cupcakes, crackers, cookies.
These are, of course, more expensive choices than filling up on slices of Farmhouse bread from the supermarket. Those who want to DIY should head to Sunshine Market in Soi Sukhumvit 22, where they not only sell a range of baked goods, but possibly the best retail variety of everything needed to bake, including flours made of almond, tapioca, rice, and potato, as well as things like psyllium husk and flaxseed.
Of course, the most affordable way to avoid wheat is to eat Thai (avoid soy sauce!) because even the noodles are generally made of rice. (Avoid soy sauce!)
But for stomachs raised on the grainy joys achieved by exploding yeast, more choices are rising.
