Gluten-free pizza is too often the less fun cousin of cardboard. It can be a starchy disaster. A thick gummy mess. For those afraid of carbs and flavor, there’s also something called “cauliflower crust.” Must I continue?
Fortunately, this pizza is nothing like that. The dough is as fluffy as a neck pillow, freckled brown from the roaring oven. It smells of yeast and malt. It holds up perfectly under pressure and holds up well to toppings like tomatoes, stretchy Double 8 Jersey mozzarella, basil, and spicy soppressata sausage ($24.50). But somehow, against all expectations, it’s gluten-free.
Lucia’s, located at 2016 Shattuck Ave. in downtown Berkeley, has been offering gluten-free pizza alongside its regular version (which is hard to tell) since it opened in 2016. But since the arrival of the award-winning Sara Palmieri earlier this year, gluten-free pizza makers have never been better, says owner Alessandro Uccelli.
Palmieri’s secret, or rather one of its secrets, is its gluten-free flour from the famous Italian flour mill Caputo, which counterintuitively contains wheat. It is a proprietary blend of ingredients such as rice flour, cornstarch, gum as a binding agent, and wheat starch separated from gluten proteins.
For people with celiac disease like Palmieri, it’s gluten, not flavorful starches, that is dangerous. Ms. Palmieri, 27, grew up near Naples, where she said “pizza is the mainstay of Italian food culture,” she said through her translator. When she was diagnosed with celiac disease at age 17, she seemed cast in bit parts.
But Sara Palmieri’s brother, pizza chef Ernesto Palmieri (who also now works at Lucia’s), encouraged her to try gluten-free pizza. She did it. She won second place at the European Gluten-Free Expo in Rimini in 2015 and third place in the gluten-free category at the prestigious World Pizza Championship in Parma in 2016.
Palmieri’s real secret (you can actually find Captos’ gluten-free flour) online) is her delicate touch. Without the elasticity provided by gluten, the dough will tear easily.in video Demonstrating the technique, she carefully presses it with her fingertips, flattening the center and pushing air to the edges. Rather than using semolina flour (which also contains gluten) when shaping the dough and putting it in the oven, Lucia’s switches all of its pizzas to rice flour, making the oven safer for people with celiac disease. (Her Uccelli, Lucia’s owner, emphasizes that people who are highly sensitive to gluten should be aware of the potential for cross-contamination in the kitchen.)
With celiac guests like Palmieri in mind, all of Lucia’s menus include great gluten-free accommodations. Meatballs are made with gluten-free breadcrumbs, fried foods like calamari are gluten-free by default, and pasta dishes are available with her Rummo’s chewy gluten-free pasta.
But the highlight is the Palmieri pizza. That’s what we say in Italian: “Perfect.”
Contact Caleb Pershan: [email protected]
