How the kitchen works
Most of what makes Umeko different is invisible from the dining room. It is worth writing down.
Umeko has been feeding the Bank Street strip from number 418, seven days a week, from half eleven most mornings. It has four and a half stars from 312 people, and a bill that usually lands between ten and twenty dollars a head.
What it does not have, and the reason this page exists, is an obvious way to tell you that a coeliac can eat almost everything on the board.
A gluten‑free kitchen that still fries things
Plenty of restaurants will tell you they have gluten-free options. What they usually mean is that you can eat the sashimi. The fryer is shared, the imitation crab is bound with wheat, the teriyaki comes out of a bottle, and the safe list is three items long.
Umeko was set up the other way round. Four decisions do most of the work, and they are the reason 78 of the 97 dishes on the menu are gluten‑free.
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The fryer is gluten-free, and only gluten-free
Shrimp tempura, chicken karaage and agedashi tofu are all battered in rice flour. Nothing containing wheat is cooked in that oil, so there is no cross-contact to explain away. It is the single reason a coeliac can order the dynamite roll, and the dynamite roll is what every dragon roll on the board is built on.
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The crab is Alaska pollock
Wild-caught, whole fish protein, no wheat and no additives. It goes into the California roll, the crab salad rolls and the dynamite roll. Most imitation crab is bulked out with wheat starch, which quietly rules out half a sushi menu.
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The sauces are made here
Teriyaki and garlic mayo are made in the kitchen to a gluten-free recipe, including a vegan teriyaki. That keeps the teriyaki bowls, the donburi and every sauced dragon roll on the safe list instead of off it.
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The soup and salad come too
Every combo includes gluten-free miso soup and green salad rather than a substitution you have to ask for. Vegan miso is available on request.
The one thing that is not gluten-free is the udon, and the menu says so plainly. The kitchen is small and shared, so tell us when you order and we will be straight with you about what we can and cannot promise.
Twenty-seven things a vegan can order
The vegan section is not one cucumber roll at the bottom of the page. There are eleven vegan maki, two vegan dragon rolls, a rainbow futomaki, a tofu teriyaki bowl, agedashi tofu, fresh spring rolls, three salads and the miso.
All but two of them are gluten-free as well, which is a harder list to find than it sounds.
- Dishes on the menu 105
- Gluten free 78
- Vegan 27
- Rolls, all told 50
The room
A counter down one wall, tables at the front, and a case of fish that gets cut through the day. Most orders leave in a bag for Centretown, but lunch fills the seats.
Lunch is the busy hour. After that it settles into a steady run of bags going out the door until close.
Come and eat
418 Bank St, seven days a week. Call ahead and it will be ready when you get here.