What Italian food is gluten free? Risotto, gnocchi, polenta

In Italy, many signature dishes are gluten free by their ingredients: risotto is built on rice, polenta on maize. Others always contain gluten, such as gnocchi, arancini and cannoli, unless a version is made on purpose. In between, everything happens in the kitchen: a stock cube, shared pasta water, a common fryer. Here is what to know dish by dish, and where to eat each one safely.

This guide is about the food. For the Italian system itself (screening, state support, pharmacies, the national association’s network), read our guide to gluten-free travel in Italy.

Is risotto gluten free? Rice yes, stock not always

Risotto is one of the easiest dishes to order. Rice, stock, butter, parmesan, white wine: none of these basic ingredients contains gluten. Risotto alla milanese adds saffron, also gluten free when pure.

The weak point is the stock. In the food list kept by the Associazione Italiana Celiachia (AIC), stock cubes, stock preparations and meat or vegetable extracts are classed as “at risk”: some contain gluten, others do not, and only the label tells you. Ready-made risottos, in packets or frozen, are in the same category. A restaurant that makes its own stock does not have this problem; one that uses a cube might.

Two questions are enough: “Il brodo è fatto in casa?” (is the stock homemade?) and, if not, “Il dado è senza glutine?” (is the stock cube gluten free?).

The simplest option is a kitchen with no wheat at all. The Risotteria Melotti restaurants are the best-known example: their website states that they only serve dishes made with rice and rice flours from their own production, entirely gluten free. We list three, all classed as dedicated: Rome near Piazza Navona (4.5/5 from more than 3,000 reviews), Milan in the Navigli and Florence. In Milan, Risus, in Porta Venezia, serves risotto alla milanese and tiramisu on a menu with no wheat dish at all.

A risotteria is not safe just because it cooks rice, though. Officina del Riso in Milan flags only two gluten-free items on its menu: we class it as “options”, with two risks noted on the listing, cross-contamination and flour in the air.

Polenta: gluten free by nature, not always on the plate

Polenta is cooked maize flour. The AIC lists pre-cooked or instant polenta flour and ready-made polenta among permitted foods. Polenta taragna, from Valtellina and the Lombard Alps, mixes maize and buckwheat flour: both gluten free, with the usual caveat about buckwheat milled alongside wheat (explained in our article on buckwheat).

What needs checking is what goes with it and how it is cooked:

• The ragù or sauce on top: a sauce may be thickened with flour;
• Fried or grilled polenta: if it goes into the fryer used for breaded food, it is no longer safe;
• Pizzoccheri served alongside in Valtellina: these are pasta, not polenta, and the specification for the PGI “Pizzoccheri della Valtellina” requires at least 20% buckwheat topped up with wheat. They contain gluten.

We have no place specialising in polenta; it is ordered in an ordinary trattoria, asking the questions above.

Is gnocchi gluten free in Italy? Not in either classic version

This is the dish that surprises people most. Potato gnocchi contain wheat flour, which binds the dough. Gnocchi alla romana, baked semolina discs, are made from durum wheat semolina. The AIC lists both as forbidden foods. There is no “naturally” gluten-free version: you need gnocchi made on purpose.

Even then, one thing still needs checking: the cooking water. The AIC rules for venues in its “Alimentazione Fuori Casa” network state it plainly: water that has cooked foods with gluten must not be reused. A well-trained mixed kitchen takes a clean pan; a rushed one drops the basket into the ordinary pasta water.

Where to find them in our listings:

• Linfa, Milan, a plant-based, fully gluten-free restaurant that reworks Italian classics, gnocchi included (see the listing);
• Il Fresco Senza Glutine, Bergamo, a workshop making fresh pasta, tortelli and gnocchi exclusively gluten free (see the listing);
• RicCettario, Pesaro, a dedicated workshop making tortellini, lasagne and gnocchi, to take away or at a few tables (see the listing).

Arancini, supplì and fried food: the double trap

Sicilian arancini and Roman supplì are rice balls, but their crust is breading: breadcrumbs, often over a flour batter. The AIC lists breaded meat and fish, and fried fish, as forbidden. The rice inside changes nothing.

The second trap is the fryer. Even an arancino breaded with gluten-free crumbs becomes unsafe if it is fried in the oil used for ordinary arancini. The AIC network rules explicitly forbid oil already used for foods with gluten. Outside that network, “L’olio della friggitrice è separato?” (is the fryer oil separate?) is the only question that matters. It is the same mechanism as with chips.

The safest answer is a place with no wheat at all:

• Le Altre Farine del Mulino, Rome, a 100% gluten-free Sicilian bakery a few steps from St Peter’s: arancini, pizza, cannoli, 4.7/5 from more than 1,300 reviews (see the listing);
• No Gluten Bakery, Palermo, where everything is gluten free, arancini included; the listing suggests going late morning, as production is limited (see the listing);
• L’Amico Mio, Verona, seafood street food with an entirely gluten-free menu: arancini, fried fish, sandwiches, 4.9/5 (see the listing);
• GluFree Bakery, Milan, a 100% gluten-free bakery and rotisserie that says it belongs to the AIC network (see the listing).

Pizza and pasta: the oven and the water

Pizza and pasta are wheat, obviously, but this is also where Italy is most advanced: gluten-free pasta on menus, pizzerias with a dedicated dough. The problem is no longer the recipe but shared cooking. The AIC network rules forbid baking foods with and without gluten in the same oven at the same time, and require cleaning the oven before baking gluten-free food; for pasta, they require clean water. We have a whole article on the shared pizza oven.

Again, a dedicated kitchen is simplest:

• Gluten Free San Pietro, Rome: a tiny family place near the Vatican where the whole menu is gluten free, from pasta to tiramisu, 4.9/5 (see the listing);
• Grano Libero, Pisa: the city’s first 100% gluten-free restaurant, AIC-certified according to its website, with pasta, fried dishes and tiramisu (see the listing);
• Locanda del Pentegallo, Turin: an AIC-certified, 100% gluten-free pizzeria-restaurant with more than 80 pizzas and risottos (see the listing).

Desserts: tiramisu, cannoli, gelato

Almost all the great Italian desserts contain wheat:

• Tiramisu is built on ladyfingers (savoiardi), made with wheat flour;
• Cannoli have a fried shell made from a dough of flour, lard and marsala; the ricotta inside does not make them safe;
• Gelato is a case apart: many flavours have no gluten ingredient, but cones, biscuit flavours and the scoop moving from tub to tub change everything. We cover it in a separate article.

Panna cotta (cream, sugar, gelatine) has no gluten ingredient in its basic recipe; check the coulis or crumbled biscuit on top.

For gluten-free versions of the classics, our listings have plenty: La Pasticciera, a dedicated workshop near Termini station and part of the AIC network according to our sources, makes cannoli; Freedom Lounge Bakery in Turin fills its own to order; and near San Gimignano, OHHH Tiramisù makes nothing but 100% gluten-free tiramisu, ladyfingers included.

The AIC network: what it guarantees

Italy has an asset few countries have: the AIC’s “Alimentazione Fuori Casa” (eating out) programme. To join, a venue must attend a course on coeliac disease run by the association, the health authorities or their partners, then complete further training on site; the local AIC branch then carries out at least one in-depth inspection a year. The rules target exactly the weak points above: frying oil, cooking water, oven, work surfaces.

What it does not say: a network venue can still be a mixed kitchen. That is why Nutrixe separates dedicated places (nothing with gluten in the kitchen) from places with a gluten-free menu in a shared kitchen; the difference is explained in our article on cross-contamination. We list 455 verified places in Italy, 383 of them dedicated. They are all on the map, and the best-covered cities have their own guide: Rome, Milan, Florence, Turin.

In short