Amazing gluten free pizza!
Pizza is amazing. Who doesn’t love pizza? Unfortunately for gluten free folks, eating safely at pizza restaurants can be a challenge with so much flour flying around. For a cuisine filled with gluten containing dishes, Italian restaurants are some of the best at catering for gluten free customers. But how many of them are doing enough to keep gluten free customers safe? Do you feel safe eating gluten free pizza at restaurants?
Some celiacs say they never eat gluten free pizza at restaurants. The only pizza they eat is the pizza they create themselves at home because they don’t trust that the pizza at restaurants is safe enough for them to eat.
Other celiacs say that they of course eat gluten free pizza. They will eat pizza whenever and wherever they can get their hands on it and they are so happy to have the option. Cross contamination is a possibility in any restaurant which isn’t entirely gluten free so if you are going to eat out at all why limit yourself?
When I was first diagnosed I thought I would never again enjoy the taste of a freshly baked pizza but I soon discovered there was such a thing as gluten free pizza. Woohoo! I then began to order pizza at any restaurant I found which offered a gluten free option but I just as quickly found out that gluten free doesn’t always mean 100% gluten free. Burned (and ill for a week at a time!) due to cross contamination on a few different occasions, this scared me away from ordering pizza at restaurants and I resorted to making my own.
Nowadays I do eat pizza at restaurants but I’m extremely picky about which restaurants.
GF pizza in Oakland
Home made gluten-free pizza
Pizza is awesome, obviously, and there are an increasing number of pizza places and Italian restaurants offering gluten free pizza. The precautions each restaurant takes to keep gluten free customers safe however seems to vary pretty extensively from simply offering gluten free bases to having a whole separate prep area, utensils, ingredients and oven for making gluten free pizza. Most of the restaurants with gluten free options that I’ve come across fall somewhere in the middle.
So what are your thoughts on this? Do you go out for gluten free pizza? Will you eat ‘gluten free’ pizza anywhere that offers it or do you only eat at the one or two places you consider to be safe?
Tune in next week for my tips on ordering safe gluten free pizza, no matter where you are in the world!
Lots of gluten free pizza!
Pamela
Nov 21st, 2012I have pretty similar experiences to yours. Plus, dairy tends to be a little iffy for me (and I’m not a fan of “cheeze”). Most of the time I have pizza it’s at home, but I have found one restaurant I trust completely with gluten-free pizza. I do try it at other restaurants on occasion too, but only where I feel really safe.
Estella
Nov 21st, 2012Biaggi’s is the only place I’ll even consider ordering pizza. They don’t have a ton of locations but I’ve met the Executive Chef who has developed their gluten-free menu. Chef Paul runs the Perrysburg location kitchen & is a partner in that location. Crust comes from Venice Bakery in CA so it’s gluten, dairy, soy & egg-free. Tinkyada is their pasta of choice. Chef Paul’s son has food intolerances so he takes the menu as well as running a separate part of the kitchen for the gluten-free menu prep VERY seriously. If he can avoid using flour in ANYTHING he will so even their Alfredo sauce is gluten-free. Can personally recommend their pizza or pasta dishes to anyone who might be near one of their locations.
Carol
Nov 29th, 2012Risotteria in Greenwich Village in NY. The GF pizza is really good and the GF breadsticks on every table are awesome. My non-GF family went nuts over the breadsticks.
Clair
Dec 1st, 2012I have had pizza at Z-pizza, Mellow Mushroom, Daniels ( a local well known restaurant in Apex, NC) and Bella Monica in the Raleigh, NC area. Z-pizza and Bella Monica are the most trustworthy I believe. I have not yet had a problem at any of these places. I have asked at most of these places how they prepare the pizzas and have been satisfied with their answers. Bella Monica now sells frozen gluten free pizzas that you can fix at home that are really quite good and may be available in many places. I am a celiac (diagnosed over four years ago) but I may not be as sensitive as some celiacs to cross contamination although I have been burned a couple of times on items that supposedly were gluten free.
Lori
Dec 2nd, 2012I live in San Francisco and was wondering where in Oakland you ordered that pizza? It looks delicious! So does your homemade pizza 🙂
Laura
Dec 2nd, 2012Hi Lori! I got it at Pizza Rustica. It was pretty amazing but I can’t be 100% sure on cross contamination issues. If you go I’d love to hear your thoughts. 🙂 http://glutenfreetraveller.com/gluten-free-usa/pizza-rustica-oakland/
Amici’s here in SF is pretty good too, they take lots of precautions. 🙂 Happy pizza hunting!