Celiac disease, for the uninitiated, is an autoimmune condition that renders sufferers unable to digest gluten, a protein found in wheat as well as in other grains such as rye, barley and triticale. It affects about 1% of the population, and there are many more who identify as gluten sensitive or gluten intolerant or who just prefer to avoid it. Still others are allergic to wheat.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, gluten is precisely the element of wheat flour that makes it the essential ingredient for bread \u2014 including pizza. Gluten is the protein that, when kneaded with yeast and water, forms the elastic structure that gives bread its distinctive texture.<\/p>\n
A self-confessed glutton for gluten, I\u2019ve been fielding requests for an overview of the local GF pizza scene since I started compiling Newsday\u2019s best pizza list<\/a> in 2012. Now, I\u2019ve applied all my pizza-judging chops to the task, and here’s what I learned:\u00a0<\/p>\n Risks of cross-contamination The gluten-free Buffalo chicken pie at Bare Naked Bakery in Garden City, the only place on Long Island where you can get a slice of gluten-free pizza. Credit: Newsday\/Erica Marcus<\/p>\n As more and more people seek\u00a0gluten-free alternatives to traditionally wheaten foods like bread, pizza, pasta and pastries, food science has obliged with better and better products. Manufactured in a gluten-free facility and consumed at home, they offer the consumer complete confidence.<\/p>\n But providing gluten-free food in a restaurant setting is another story. On Long Island, there are a handful of 100% gluten-free spots (most prominently, Bare Naked Bakery cafes<\/a> in Bellmore, Garden City, Huntington and Plainview), but virtually every other establishment that serves gluten-free pizza also serves regular pizza, and that means there is a danger of cross-contamination: Even if you wipe down all the counters and mop the floors, it\u2019s impossible to completely rid the space of microscopic specks of flour.<\/p>\n Donatina Neapolitan Pizza Cafe in Patchogue serves gluten-free Detroit and Neapolitan pies that are some of the best around, and owner John Peragine goes to great lengths to ensure the safety of the 15% of his customers that order them. But, he noted, “if you have a severe condition, there is definitely still a risk of airborne particles.”<\/p>\n All of the pizzerias I visited told me they use dedicated tools to top and serve the gluten-free pizzas, bake them on trays so they don\u2019t touch the oven floors, make the dough (if they make their own dough) either in dedicated or freshly sanitized equipment at a time when nothing else is going on nearby. But none of them has a separate gluten-free kitchen.<\/p>\n “If places are offering a gluten-free product, they have to do it safely and wisely and not begrudgingly,” Figliuolo said.\u00a0“But no place that handles gluten is 100% safe and, ultimately, the consumer has to decide on the risk.”<\/p>\n It\u2019s all about that crust<\/p>\n A kitchen that wants to make gluten-free pizza has options. Wholesale distributors stock an array of premade crusts that are par-baked and frozen. All a pizzeria has to do is top them and give them a final spin in the oven.<\/p>\n At the least pizza-ish end of the spectrum, is the cauliflower crust whose main ingredient is cauliflower that has been “riced” (broken down into tiny pieces) and then combined with non-wheat flour and other ingredients (maybe egg or cheese)\u00a0that help keep it together. You can get a cauliflower crust to brown but, to me, it doesn\u2019t really approximate the experience of eating pizza \u2014 which isn\u2019t to say that good sauce and good cheese baked on a cauliflower crust won\u2019t be delicious.<\/p>\n Then there are premade crusts made from non-wheat flours and starches that try to better approximate the texture of a true pizza. Rich\u2019s, a Buffalo-based multinational supplier, is the leading producer of gluten-free crusts, but there are many smaller companies including Zero Gluten Foods in New Jersey, Still Riding Foods in Connecticut and Long Island\u2019s own Bare Naked Bakery which operates a wholesale facility in Shirley.<\/p>\n Premade crusts usually come in disposable aluminum trays so that they never touch the floor of the pizza oven (which may bear traces of the regular pizza baked there). Unfortunately, between the gluten-free ingredients and the aluminum tray, these crusts do not like to brown. Bridget Dernbach, founder of Bare Naked, has a fix: She advises pizzerias to slip the naked crusts into the oven to get the tops brown and then to flip them over (the browned top is now the bottom) before adding the sauce and cheese.<\/p>\n From-scratch GF pizza Gluten-free grandma pizza at Rustica Brick Oven Cafe in Garden City South. Credit: Megan Schlow<\/p>\n For Long Island\u2019s elite pizzaioli who can\u2019t countenance a premade crust, two flours have come to the rescue: Bob’s Red Mill gluten-free mix and Fioreglut. The latter,\u00a0made by Caputo, a leading\u00a0Italian mill), has been a godsend since it creates a dough with a bread-like structure \u2014 though without much of a taste. There\u2019s another catch: While the flour contains no gluten, it does contain wheat starch, so it is not safe for those with wheat allergies.<\/p>\n Fioreglut is the key ingredient in the gluten-free Sicilian served at\u00a0Rustica Brick Oven Cafe in\u00a0Garden City South.\u00a0It’s a pizza that draws customers\u00a0from all over Nassau and Suffolk even though, as with most gluten-free items, it costs about twice what the regular Sicilian does. And that\u2019s a bargain, explained owner Maria Viti: The Fioreglut flour costs about five times more than regular, she said, “and that doesn\u2019t take into account all the gloves, plastic wrap and cleaning supplies we use to keep our customers safe.”<\/p>\n Rustica has served a gluten-free menu since it opened in 2011. Before the pandemic it accounted for about 20% of sales but, “during COVID when people had nothing else to do, they started coming here for gluten-free. Now it\u2019s probably 70% of our business.”<\/p>\n The kitchen uses a different gluten-free flour mix (Bob\u2019s Red Mill)\u00a0 for its 12-inch round pies. While those\u00a0don\u2019t get much of a rise, the mix contains a number of whole grain flours (brown rice, millet, sorghum) that give it a pleasingly grainy flavor. Rustica uses that same dough to make chicken rolls, a standard pizzeria item that is rarely rendered gluten-free.<\/p>\n Another pizzeria that uses both Fioreglut and Bob\u2019s is King Umberto in Elmont. As far back as 2010, founding pizzaiolo Ciro Cesarano was using Bob\u2019s to make a grandma pie that his celiac daughter, Anna, could eat. His son, Giovanni, now in charge of the pizzeria, said he still relies on the same recipe. \u00a0Since 2018, he has also\u00a0using a mixture of\u00a0Fioreglut (for texture) and Bob’s (for flavor) for\u00a0a terrific Sicilian pie.\u00a0<\/p>\n 10 STANDOUT SPOTS FOR GLUTEN-FREE PIZZA<\/p>\n This is not a comprehensive list of every local pizzeria that offers gluten-free pies, nor does it offer any cross-contamination-safety assurances. Nor is it a referendum on who has the best, most creative or most abundant toppings. Rather, it highlights 10\u00a0places go above and beyond in offering gluten-free pizzas whose crusts resemble\u00a0regular ones\u00a0\u2014 and that\u00a0a non-celiac diner (like myself) can enjoy.<\/p>\n 1653 Pizza Company, Huntington<\/p>\n 80 Gerard St., 631-824-6071, 1653pizzaco.com<\/a><\/p>\n The mortadella-pistachio-stracciatella pizza in all its gluten-free glory at 1653 Pizza Company in Huntington. Credit: Newsday\/Erica Marcus<\/p>\n These are some of the chicest pizzas around and they\u2019ll turn any of them \u2014 mortadella-pistachio-stracciatella, wild-mushroom-scamorza, Bronx bacon-vodka, white “roni” \u2014 into a gluten-free Detroit pie.<\/p>\n Alfie\u2019s, Rocky Point<\/p>\n 41 Broadway, 631-744-1117, alfiesrockypoint.com<\/a><\/p>\n A neighborhood pizzeria that puts in the work to produce a from-scratch personal square pie, Sicilian or Detroit. The quality of toppings here is extremely high since the pizzeria is owned by neighboring Delfiore Italian Italian Market.<\/p>\n Bare Naked Bakery<\/p>\n Locations in Bellmore, Garden City, Huntington and Plainview, barenakedbakery.com<\/a><\/p>\n Long Island\u2019s leading gluten-free bakery-cafe sells pizza made with its own crust and is also the only place to grab a gluten-free slice \u2014 reheated safely in an oven that has never touched wheat \u2014 an option otherwise unheard of in the gluten-free world.<\/p>\n Donatina Neapolitan Pizza Cafe, Patchogue<\/p>\n 18 West Ave., 631-730-7002, donatinapizza.com<\/a><\/p>\n Chef-owner John Peragine knows that an otherwise pale, soft Fioreglut-based crust will be crisper and browner if it is done in the Detroit style: baked in an oiled, heavy-duty, steel pan and thickly covered with Wisconsin “brick” cheese, which seeps down into the sides of the pan, caramelizing, perhaps even burning a little, to create lots of pleasantly greasy crunch. At this Newsday top pizzeria<\/a>, the gluten-free Neapolitan\u00a0is as close as you\u2019re going to come to “the real thing.”<\/p>\n Dough & Co., Huntington<\/p>\n 318 Main St., 631-213-2426, doughandcopizza.com<\/a><\/p>\n The gluten-free Sicilian pizza at Dough & Co. In Huntington. Credit: Newsday\/Erica Marcus<\/p>\n Chef-owner Danny Rocca, whose regular pizza has been on Newsday’s top pizza list <\/a>since he opened Dough & Co. in 2022,\u00a0is constantly tinkering with a gluten-free Sicilian that has real character.<\/p>\n King Umberto, Elmont<\/p>\n 1343 Hempstead Tpke., 516-352-8391, kingumberto.com<\/a><\/p>\n King Umberto, a Newsday top pizzeria<\/a>, was the first place on Long Island to sell grandma pizza, and the gluten-free version here is pretty darn close to the original. In 2017, that pie won second place in the gluten-free division at the International Pizza Expo in Las Vegas. First place went to a Sicilian pie made with Fioreglut and pizzaiolo Giovanni\u00a0Cesarano immediately went to work on a Sicilian he could call his own. By mixing 20% Bob\u2019s flour with 80% Fioreglut, he came up with a crust that had loft, crunch and flavor. The pizza took first place in 2018.<\/p>\n La Margherita, Medford<\/p>\n 1231 Station Rd., 631-924-0048, lamargheritapizza.com<\/a><\/p>\n One of Long Island\u2019s first wood-burning pizzerias (est. 1991), La Margherita lavishes its excellent sauce, cheese and toppings on a high-quality premade crust from Shirley-based Bare Naked Bakery.<\/p>\n The Pizzeria<\/p>\n Locations in Babylon, Bay Shore, Bayport, Islip, Lake Grove, Lindenhurst and Smithtown, thepizzeriany.com<\/a><\/p>\n This rapidly expanding local chain is spreading the good gluten-free word with expertly topped Bare Naked Bakery crusts.<\/p>\n Rustica Brick Oven Cafe, Garden City South<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770305648_766_image.jpeg\"\/)
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