Usually, yes, as an ingredient — corn tortillas are naturally gluten-free. The real risk isn’t the corn, it’s the kitchen: a griddle, press, or fryer that also touches flour tortillas or other wheat products can leave gluten behind. If you have celiac disease, the ingredient list isn’t the question that matters — whether the kitchen keeps corn and flour separate is.
Corn masa — ground corn (nixtamal) and water — contains no wheat, rye or barley. That’s the recipe. What the recipe can’t tell you is what else touched the tortilla on its way to the plate. Three points of cross-contact show up over and over in kitchens that serve both corn and flour tortillas: a shared comal or griddle wiped, not scrubbed, between orders; a prep counter dusted with flour for the next batch of flour tortillas; and a shared fryer, if anything is fried — a chip, a taquito, a chimichanga — that also fries anything breaded or battered in wheat. None of that shows up on an ingredient list. All of it is a fair question to ask a kitchen.
This is the same line theBEAT’s in-app Ask Card hands you for any dish tagged gluten-free without a verified receipt — phrased so a server can answer it in one breath:
We don’t certify kitchens and we don’t run our own lab tests. We read what a venue publishes about itself, quote it, link to it, and date it — so the claim on this page is never our word alone.
Chaia’s own FAQ states that all of its in-house products, including its corn tortillas, are 100% gluten-free. The same FAQ carries a separate carve-out — about nuts, not gluten: its cookies are made in a facility with nuts, so Chaia can’t guarantee those specific items are nut-free. The nut carve-out doesn’t touch the gluten-free claim, which is why we keep them apart.
Read the source →
Source read 28 July 2026 · venue’s own site
Chaia is one of seven DMV kitchens on our list with a dedicated or whole-menu gluten-free claim in writing. See the full list, each one quoted and dated.
We’re a restaurant guide, not a medical authority. For the underlying science and the legal definition of “gluten-free” in the United States, these are the organizations that get cited because they did the work:
Usually, yes, as an ingredient — corn tortillas made from corn masa and water contain no wheat. The risk isn’t the corn, it’s the kitchen: a griddle, comal, press or fryer that also handles flour tortillas or other wheat products can leave gluten behind through cross-contact. If you have celiac disease, ask whether corn and flour tortillas are made and cooked on separate equipment, not just whether the recipe itself contains wheat.
Yes. A fryer used for anything breaded or battered in wheat flour carries that gluten into everything fried after it, regardless of what the fried item itself contains — a corn tortilla chip fried in that same oil included.
Chaia’s own FAQ, read 28 July 2026, states that all of its in-house products are 100% gluten-free. Chaia also publishes a separate carve-out about nuts, not gluten: its cookies are made in a facility with nuts. Read Chaia’s FAQ directly and confirm current practice with the kitchen before you order.
We’ve sourced this in DC, Maryland and Virginia. Here’s what cleared. More cities as we open them. Whatever kitchen you’re in, on this coast or another one, the question above is the one to ask — and the answer that matters is the one the kitchen gives you today, not what any website says. Always confirm with the kitchen.
