Guide: Gluten-free pizza on Long Island

Pizza is a right that no dietary restriction should infringe. And, for those who suffer from celiac and related gluten allergies and sensitivities, Long Island pizzerias are stepping up their game.

"There are so many more options than there were a decade ago," said Cassy-Anne Figliuolo, of Copiague, an administrator of Gluten Free on Long Island’s Facebook page (which has 11,200 followers) and someone who has avoided gluten for 13 years.

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.

Unfortunately, gluten is precisely the element of wheat flour that makes it the essential ingredient for bread — including pizza. Gluten is the protein that, when kneaded with yeast and water, forms the elastic structure that gives bread its distinctive texture.

A self-confessed glutton for gluten, I’ve been fielding requests for an overview of the local GF pizza scene since I started compiling Newsday’s best pizza list in 2012. Now, I’ve applied all my pizza-judging chops to the task, and here's what I learned: 

Risks of cross-contamination

As more and more people seek gluten-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.

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 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’s impossible to completely rid the space of microscopic specks of flour.

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."

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’t 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.

"If places are offering a gluten-free product, they have to do it safely and wisely and not begrudgingly," Figliuolo said. "But no place that handles gluten is 100% safe and, ultimately, the consumer has to decide on the risk."

It’s all about that crust

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.

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) that help keep it together. You can get a cauliflower crust to brown but, to me, it doesn’t really approximate the experience of eating pizza — which isn’t to say that good sauce and good cheese baked on a cauliflower crust won’t be delicious.

Then there are premade crusts made from non-wheat flours and starches that try to better approximate the texture of a true pizza. Rich’s, 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’s own Bare Naked Bakery which operates a wholesale facility in Shirley.

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.

From-scratch GF pizza

For Long Island’s elite pizzaioli who can’t countenance a premade crust, two flours have come to the rescue: Bob's Red Mill gluten-free mix and Fioreglut. The latter, made by Caputo, a leading Italian mill), has been a godsend since it creates a dough with a bread-like structure — though without much of a taste. There’s another catch: While the flour contains no gluten, it does contain wheat starch, so it is not safe for those with wheat allergies.

Fioreglut is the key ingredient in the gluten-free Sicilian served at Rustica Brick Oven Cafe in Garden City South. It's a pizza that draws customers from all over Nassau and Suffolk even though, as with most gluten-free items, it costs about twice what the regular Sicilian does. And that’s a bargain, explained owner Maria Viti: The Fioreglut flour costs about five times more than regular, she said, "and that doesn’t take into account all the gloves, plastic wrap and cleaning supplies we use to keep our customers safe."

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’s probably 70% of our business."

The kitchen uses a different gluten-free flour mix (Bob’s Red Mill)  for its 12-inch round pies. While those don’t 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.

Another pizzeria that uses both Fioreglut and Bob’s is King Umberto in Elmont. As far back as 2010, founding pizzaiolo Ciro Cesarano was using Bob’s 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.  Since 2018, he has also using a mixture of Fioreglut (for texture) and Bob's (for flavor) for a terrific Sicilian pie. 

10 STANDOUT SPOTS FOR GLUTEN-FREE PIZZA

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 places go above and beyond in offering gluten-free pizzas whose crusts resemble regular ones — and that a non-celiac diner (like myself) can enjoy.

1653 Pizza Company, Huntington

80 Gerard St., 631-824-6071, 1653pizzaco.com

These are some of the chicest pizzas around and they’ll turn any of them — mortadella-pistachio-stracciatella, wild-mushroom-scamorza, Bronx bacon-vodka, white "roni" — into a gluten-free Detroit pie.

Alfie’s, Rocky Point

41 Broadway, 631-744-1117, alfiesrockypoint.com

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.

Bare Naked Bakery

Locations in Bellmore, Garden City, Huntington and Plainview, barenakedbakery.com

Long Island’s leading gluten-free bakery-cafe sells pizza made with its own crust and is also the only place to grab a gluten-free slice — reheated safely in an oven that has never touched wheat — an option otherwise unheard of in the gluten-free world.

Donatina Neapolitan Pizza Cafe, Patchogue

18 West Ave., 631-730-7002, donatinapizza.com

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, the gluten-free Neapolitan is as close as you’re going to come to "the real thing."

Dough & Co., Huntington

318 Main St., 631-213-2426, doughandcopizza.com

Chef-owner Danny Rocca, whose regular pizza has been on Newsday's top pizza list since he opened Dough & Co. in 2022, is constantly tinkering with a gluten-free Sicilian that has real character.

King Umberto, Elmont

1343 Hempstead Tpke., 516-352-8391, kingumberto.com

King Umberto, a Newsday top pizzeria, 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 Cesarano immediately went to work on a Sicilian he could call his own. By mixing 20% Bob’s flour with 80% Fioreglut, he came up with a crust that had loft, crunch and flavor. The pizza took first place in 2018.

La Margherita, Medford

1231 Station Rd., 631-924-0048, lamargheritapizza.com

One of Long Island’s 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.

The Pizzeria

Locations in Babylon, Bay Shore, Bayport, Islip, Lake Grove, Lindenhurst and Smithtown, thepizzeriany.com

This rapidly expanding local chain is spreading the good gluten-free word with expertly topped Bare Naked Bakery crusts.

Rustica Brick Oven Cafe, Garden City South

1 Nassau Blvd., 516-292-2197, rusticabrickoven.com

A gluten-free specialist since it opened in 2011, this is the rare pizzeria that has a designated gluten free oven. Beyond the homemade round and square pies, Rustica also sells gluten-free chicken rolls.

Sansone Market, Garden City Park

2147 Jericho Tpke., 516-447-3525, sansonemarketgardencity.com

No gluten-free pizza is served at the retail arm of one of Long Island’s leading pizza-supply wholesalers, but you can pick up two excellent frozen options to take home: an Italian-made pinsa (oval pizza) shell or a fully-executed artisanal Margherita pie.