The Anonymous Widower

Gluten-Free Pizza At Pizza Express

For many years, Sunday afternoons and evenings for C and myself had a rhymn. We would go to the cinema at either the Cambridge Picturehouse or the Cineworld and then we’d go for a pizza  in Pizza Express, often at the Pitt Club, where I always had a Capricciosa. This pattern stopped in the early 2000s, when I was diagnosed as a coeliac, so sometimes I would have a salad Niçoise, or more likely we’d go to an Indian restaurant.

But all that has now changed, in that Pizza Express have produced a new very coeliac-friendly menu. This is the gluten-free page.

Last night, I went with two friends to the newly-refurbished Pizza Express at The Angel in Islington. We sat upstairs and for an avid street watcher like myself, it is a great place to sit.

I started with a bottle of my favourite long drink; Aspall Cyder.

Aspall Cyder At Pizza Express

They also have Green’s gluten-free beer, but I do prefer my Celia, when it comes to beer. The cyder is better than both with pizza.

I also had a Capricciosa, for the first time in perhaps ten years.

Gluten-Free Pizza At Pizza Express

It tasted just like it did all of those years ago.

I think a personal tradition of a film followed by pizza is going to be revived.  all I need now is an attractive lady with whom to enjoy the experience.

I think too, you can’t accuse Pizza Express of being backward about going forward.

Advertising In Stereo

These two signs were outside.

My only problem, is that near me, there isn’t a Pizza Express with the quality of building of the Pitt Club in Cambridge.

I have a feeling that in a few years time, this will rate as one of the most significant events in dining out for coeliacs in the UK.

I wasn’t diagnosed as a child, but it must be very difficult, for both a coeliac child and their parents, when say at a birthday party, they get invited to a family restaurant.  Now they can at least eat pizza.

I think it is going to start a ripple in the various chains of restaurants, as they’ll have to follow suit.  After all, Carluccio’s and Jamie’s Italian, already operate a sensible policy on gluten-free food, and I suspect others do.

It’ll certainly make things much easier for me on my travels.  It’s already happened in Ipswich, in that the town has two Pizza Express restaurants. It’s just a pity, neither is close to Portman Road.

This will probably mean that the UK, will become one of the most coeliac-friendly countries for coeliacs to visit.

May 6, 2013 - Posted by AnonW | Food | Cider, Coeliac, Pizza, Pizza Express, The Angel, Tourism