To have and share extensive knowledge on the New York City restaurant scene and culture takes dedication and talent—and Lex Decker takes it to another level, keying in on gluten free options.
Decker, a recently retired civil engineer who works at a startup in influencer marketing, was diagnosed with celiac disease when she was 10 years old. At the time, gluten free offerings on the market were far fewer and the general level of understanding of what gluten is was lower.
But since then, things have evolved. The majority of restaurants and grocers offer gluten free options and cater to a larger population of eaters avoiding gluten.
Decker has played into that, starting an Instagram account to share gluten free options online. Now, she’s amassed nearly 49,000 followers on her Instagram account, on which she dubs herself “the Kris Jenner of gluten free” and offers “good recs for gluten eaters too!” She’s also started organizing and hosting gluten free food tours in the city.
She opened up with Appetito in a Q&A on her gluten free recommendations and food crawls.
Editor's note: Answers have been edited and condensed for clarity and style.
Q: Tell us about your gluten free creator journey.
A: I have lived in New York for four years now. Initially, I decided to start my page for fun. I started taking it more seriously in February of last year, and since, it has grown into something I never could have imagined.
My account focuses on creating a sense of community and showing that you can keep up with New York's trendy hospitality scene while still being gluten free. A lot of pages focused on being gluten free tend to lean slightly pessimistic. I think that showing that side of being gluten free is important, but I wanted to add some positivity to the conversation and to share options that restaurants themselves often don’t promote! Going out to eat and drink is a large part of NYC culture, but no one was sharing about how to stay in the know while eating gluten free!
Q: Tell us about the gluten free events and food crawls you’ve hosted in New York City. How many people have attended? What was the inspiration for the food crawl idea?
A: I have been hosting several gluten free events across the city for quite some time now, and wanted to do something different!
Since the Upper East Side has a ton of establishments that are all gluten free within walking distance of each other, it was the perfect opportunity for me to map out this journey. Originally, I was going to do one day (two sessions) of the event. When the waitlist grew into the hundreds, I added a second day. About 110 total people attended the first crawl in the spring. Being that it was a huge hit, I hosted two additional sessions in June in the West Village, which were also smash successes.
Q: How did you plan the gluten free food crawls?
A: I planned the crawl by identifying the gluten free (or mostly gluten free) businesses that we hoped to include. Then, I contacted them with my idea. Being that I am in the content creation space, I already had relationships with many of these businesses, which definitely helped.
Over a few months, several businesses agreed to take part. For the first crawl, when the day sold out and we decided to add a second day, one business decided they did not want to take part in a second day, and luckily, we had other nearby establishments willing to participate. For the second West Village crawl, all businesses were excited and immediately on board given the first crawl’s success.
Q: What were the biggest highlights?
A: For the Upper East Side crawl, the biggest highlight was probably Agata & Valentina, a 100% gluten free market in the neighborhood. The Italian grocer offered a lunch tasting of their fresh gluten free focaccia, ravioli, and meatballs. Afterwards, they freshly piped cannoli for everyone to try, and left everyone with goodie bags of several pastries and a coupon to shop around after.
For the West Village crawl, the biggest highlight was finding out that someone from Sweden heard about what we were doing and chose to attend—I was so shocked that what we put together had received global recognition.
Q: What are you hoping the experience is like for participants?
A: I hope that all attendees got to try things that they never had before, and made some new friends along the way. The entire reason I started hosting events was because of how isolating being gluten free can be sometimes—I wanted to build a community and connect people with others going through the same thing.
Q: What are you planning next for your gluten free community?
A: With the success of our first two events, it would be criminal not to plan a third for the fall. Some other events on the horizon for the remainder of 2025 include dinner parties, a pasta-making class, a Friendsgiving, and a bagel "run" 5k!
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