If you are gluten-free, at first, you will feel like a gun-safety advocate attending a meeting of the NRA. But gradually they warm up, if they sense you’re not the litigious type, and you show them your EpiPen.
Kingston now offers special coffee for very special people. This is all part of its citywide image makeover, centered around the one-block gentrification district, North Front Street.
Gourmet coffee is taken to new heights of patience, with the pour-over. You will be treated as if you’re already supposed to know about this innovation, which is served each morning in all of the progressive, trans-friendly shared households in the city.
It’s a little like the Brew-a-Cup sensation, advertised in TV Guide in the 1970s, only it takes about half an hour longer, as the coffee is splashed over the grinds about one tablespoon at a time, at exactly 207 degrees. The result is a rather good cup of coffee, so good that you can feel the Sumatran breeze blowing as you sip it.
“Espresso is like a cocktail, and drip coffee is like beer. Pour-over is like wine,” said a coffee-bartender on the morning I visited the establishment, who sounded convincing. There are no baristas.
The place does serve food. They have retrieved the long-forgotten 18th-century innovation of the sandwich. There are bread, buns and rolls everywhere, apparently more popular than ever. Decades into addressing celiac, I should be more envious than I am; the plates look pretty good.
What restaurant owners need to know is that if you’re not eating gluten for medical reasons, most places, a menu is basically a list of everything you cannot have. Whereas for the usual customer, it’s a list of all the wonderful possibilities. The experience of dining out is essentially inverted if you have celiac.
If you are gluten-free, at first, visiting Bread+Bar will feel like a gun-safety advocate attending a meeting of the NRA. But gradually they warm up, if they sense you’re not the litigious type, and if you show them your EpiPen.
This is a bread bar after all, so there’s a lot of flour flying in the air. The kitchen, which is also a bakery, is just inundated. Gluten-free is not in the business plan. In a way that is admirable: they own their stuff, which in this case is gliadin.
They are nervous about keeping the substance off of your plate. I guess you cannot be too careful, though gluten-free people are subjected to all kinds of actual not giving a toss, and these folks definitely do. (Employees, beware of baker’s asthma, a reaction that even non-celiac people have to gluten.) But they do offer some options, such as eggs, yogurt and granola, and during lunch, vegetables. Be ready to negotiate a little.
Still, the place has a fresh atmosphere, good wifi and sturdy, comfortable seats. There are lots of books about bread for curious gourmands to peruse. It’s an excellent place to be if you want that anonymous, big-city feeling for the first seven minutes you’re there.
Since the mystique of the establishment, its destination-appeal, is all about the fresh bread, they cannot serve gluten-free bread from another bakery (one certified GF), of which there are several excellent ones based locally. According to resident foodie experts down the street, this would ruin the mystique, an affliction also shared by Cafe DUO around the corner.
Still, the place has a fresh atmosphere, good wifi and sturdy, comfortable seats. There are lots of books about bread for curious gourmands to peruse. It’s an excellent place to be if you want that anonymous, big-city feeling for the first seven minutes you’re there.
Our critics have not visited at night, though we hear you can get tipsy in a very classy style. This represents a definite upgrade from the days of Two Ravens and that other place. Welcome to the neighborhood!
For additional data collection, we recommend that you give either George, Thor or Mohammed between $5 and $10 several times a week and send them in to try the place.