{"id":340081,"date":"2026-03-11T07:04:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T07:04:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/340081\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T07:04:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T07:04:23","slug":"the-montesacro-team-goes-gluten-free-with-new-neighborhood-trattoria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/340081\/","title":{"rendered":"The Montesacro team goes gluten-free with new neighborhood trattoria"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gianluca Legrottaglie is the kind of Italian-born chef who sips hot, velvety shots of espresso even on unseasonably warm spring afternoons and bemoans the mediocre quality of limoncello in this country. He has strong opinions about the proper texture of pasta dough and is proud to have introduced the oval-shaped Roman pizza called \u201cpinsa\u201d to the U.S. when he opened the first Montesacro in SoMa more than a decade ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Which is why it comes as a surprise that his latest restaurant, Clementina, will be entirely gluten-free.<\/p>\n

Yes, there will be pasta and pizza at the Inner Richmond trattoria, which is set to open on March 12. But they will be made without the stretchy protein that\u2019s responsible for giving bread, pasta, and pizza their cherished elasticity and chew. Legrottaglie and his wife and business partner Viviana Devoto want Clementina to be a safe place for diners with celiac disease, which means nothing glutenous will enter the building. \u201cWhat\u2019s most important to us is that we don\u2019t scare anyone away,\u201d Legrottaglie says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ACostoletta alla Milanese. | Source: Courtesy Clementina<\/p>\n

The decision is highly personal for the restaurateurs, whose youngest daughter Alice was diagnosed with the autoimmune disorder, which causes the body to react to gluten by attacking the small intestine. The family has spent years perfecting gluten-free versions of Italian dishes like squid ink tagliolini and baked mussels under a layer of breadcrumbs, which they feel confident do not sacrifice on flavor. (\u201cWe have restaurant kids, you know? So their palates are good,\u201d Devoto says.) The couple has also brought in chef Giorgio Brunella, a native of Liguria whose two daughters also have celiac disease, to oversee the kitchen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The goal was not to shoehorn classics into gluten-free versions, but to feature dishes that were already well-suited to being celiac-safe. Appetizers include crudo di mare, marinated rotating fish served with corn chips, and cozze gratinate al gorgonzola, a cast-iron skillet piled with baked mussels on the half shell in a creamy gorgonzola sauce. On the larger side, diners can order costoletta alla Milanese, a thin pork chop coated in housemade breadcrumbs then fried in clarified butter, and risotto croccante e midollo. The traditional Milanese dish sees saffron-infused risotto cooked into a crispy pancake, then served with luscious bone marrow on the side.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Wood-finishedSource: Courtesy Clementina\"ASource: Courtesy Clementina\"FlatbreadSource: Courtesy Clementina<\/p>\n

Still, Legrottaglie felt it necessary to have his most famous dish, pinsa, on the menu \u2014 \u201cTo me, it was important to keep it going\u201d \u2014 which required developing a proprietary flour blend that delivered the right chew and crispy crust. After countless rounds of trial and error, they settled on a blend of quinoa and rice flour for the pizza dough, and a mix of corn and rice flours to make fresh extruded pastas. The resulting selection of pinsas includes classic margherita, the Clementina (mozzarella, broccoli rabe, pork sausage), the Alice (tomato, mozzarella, anchovy, oregano) and the Guilia (mozzarella, potato, lamb sausage, garlic, rosemary). Pasta options include pesto lasagna, squid ink tagliolini, risotto, and gnocchi.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Adding to the couple\u2019s confidence as they prepare to open: the success they saw when they briefly flipped the Marina location of Montesacro into a gluten-free pop-up called Alice by Montesacro. After closing that restaurant permanently \u2014 Legrottaglie wanted to downsize so he could spend more time with the family \u2014 the owners decided to move the pop-up into the Clement Street space that had previously housed their trattoria Bettola<\/a>. \u201cIn our minds, we\u2019re putting it on pause,\u201d Legrottaglie says of the Italian rotisserie restaurant, leaving the door open to revive it down the line. Since closing Bettola in mid-February, the couple did a light renovation at breakneck speed, including ripping out a partition that separated the front and main dining rooms, adding a 12-seat bar, and installing custom wooden shelves that display retail items like gluten-free pastas and bottles of Italian wines.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Wood-finishedSource: Courtesy Clementina<\/p>\n

Having seen their daughter navigate the stress and anxiety of dining out, the couple is taking no chances when it comes to food safety. They took time to pull everything out of the kitchen \u2014 from the large equipment down to the cutting boards \u2014 so it could be sanitized multiple times to avoid cross-contamination. Staff will be prohibited from bringing in their own food from outside. They hope this means Clementina will be a truly inclusive restaurant for diners like Alice. \u201cWe learned the hard way, personally, with our daughter,\u201d Legrottaglie says. \u201cIt was a labor of love.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Date and timeOpens March 12\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gianluca Legrottaglie is the kind of Italian-born chef who sips hot, velvety shots of espresso even on unseasonably…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[155782,103,61,60,21335,446,28607,155783],"class_list":{"0":"post-340081","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nutrition","8":"tag-eat-here","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-italian-food","13":"tag-nutrition","14":"tag-restaurant-openings","15":"tag-richmond-district"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}