One of California’s Best Gluten-Free Bakeries Is Opening in Portland This Fall

One of Southern California’s best gluten-free bakeries, Kirari West, is bringing its supple wheat-free breads and daytime cafe fare to Portland this October with a new location in the former Boxer Ramen space on NW 23rd. Owner Hiro Saito debuted Kirari West in Redondo Beach in 2014, just years after his family opened the doors to Kirari in Fukushima, Japan in 2010. In 2022, Saito opened Confections by Kirari, a gluten-free cookie-focused bakeshop, in Redondo Beach. The new location in Portland will be the first stateside expansion for Kirari outside of California.

Kirari West

Kirari’s new location in Portland will operate as a bakery, cafe, and smoothie bar; it’s set to offer an all-day menu of sandwiches, bowls, smoothies, and more. (Unlike the Redondo Beach location, the Portland bakery will not offer cake for the foreseeable future.) Breakfast will include dishes like brioche toast with ricotta and jam and overnight French toast with Oregon berries, while lunch leans savory with quinoa bowls, paninis on homemade bread, and seasonal salads. But the star of the show is the standalone loaves and stacked pastry cabinet, which include a brioche loaf, a house loaf, and a rustic boule, as well as muffins, cinnamon brioche, almond brioche, and scones. On the juicier side of things, Kirari will blend berries and greens into smoothies like the Berry Nice, with strawberries and blueberries, and the Grass is Greener, with kale, spinach, and banana.

Saito chose Portland as the next location for Kirari after seeing an uptick in online sales from the region. He’ll be partnering with Ramen Ryoma owner Yoshinari Ichise and manager Soichiro Kato on the new cafe and bakery, which has made the business financially stronger and able to lease a larger space.

Although Saito isn’t gluten-free himself, he’s spent the last decade perfecting his wheat-free baking. Kirari uses a flour blend made mostly from rice flour, though each pastry requires slightly different ratios. The Japan location of Kirari also uses rice flour in its pastries and was one of the first in the region to do so. “Regular bread has thousands of years of history, so there are tons of recipes out there, and there’s a scientific sort of like fact behind it,” Saito says. “But gluten-free is totally new and it’s all about trying recipes and failing and trying it again.” After 10 years, he doesn’t experiment as much with his base recipe but is always looking for ways to offer a more diverse lineup of pastries and other dishes. Though Saito doesn’t specifically use Japanese ingredients in his baking, he credits his background for informing how he approaches food.

“My cultural background doesn’t mean I use Japanese ingredients,” Saito says. “But how I treat the food, and the philosophy and craftsmanship behind it.”

With the expansion, Saito is most excited about serving a new community that may not know Kirari. “I like to surprise people,” he says. “I like to hear people say, ‘Wow, is this really gluten-free?’” Saito remembers hearing that tone of surprise in people’s voices when he first opened in Redondo Beach and hopes to deliver a similar feeling to the Rose City. When it opens, Kirari West will join Portland’s already outstanding scene of gluten-free bakeries including Gluten Free Gem and New Cascadia Traditional.

“It motivates me a lot when people, especially gluten-free people, can’t find good gluten-free bread,” Saito says. “They’re always looking for something fluffy, something moist, those textures, and we’re able to create that.”

Kirari West will be located at 1668 NW 23rd Avenue, Portland, OR 97210, and is slated to open in mid to late October.

Kirari West

Kirari West

Kirari West

Kirari West