Pizza Rustica, Oakland

Amazing gluten free pizza

Yesterday was my 28th birthday and to celebrate we went to Pizza Rustica on College, Oakland. One word for you….amazingtastic!

Choosing to eat out at Italian restaurants is always a little stressful for me for pretty obvious reasons. Italian tends to mean lots of gluten and unless it’s a 100% gluten free Italian restaurant (which I don’t think I’ve found yet) in reality this means my gluten free pizza is being prepared and cooked in the same kitchen as lots and lots of gluten filled pizza and pasta. It’s not that I don’t trust that the chef knows what he or she doing and I’m sure they are being as careful as they can be to prevent contamination but there is always that possibility where everything else being prepared is gluten filled!

I was attracted to Pizza Rustica because all of their pizzas can be made gluten free in either 10 or 12 inch size. There are 30  different pizzas to choose from including veggie pizzas, meaty pizzas and lots of other exciting toppings which makes it very difficult to decide as all of them sound amazing! Their free range rotisserie chickens are also gluten free. The restaurant itself is small and cozy and the staff were very helpful.

I decided to go for the Big Kahuna because I love pizza with pineapple and John went for the All American because he’s all american and can’t resist choosing the pizza with the most variety of meat. He made his gluten free too so that we could mix and match. These pizzas didn’t look gluten free and they didn’t taste gluten free but they were and they were fantastic with a bottle of Chardonnay. The prices for non gluten free pizza are pretty good but the additional $5 to make it gluten free makes it a little more pricey. It was definitely worth it though.

We finished off our meal with a triple chocolate brownie made by Mariposa Bakery. Rich and delicious. What a birthday dinner!

This may have been the best gluten free pizza I’ve ever had!