Senza glutine in Rome

Matt and I went to Rome for Easter. I loved it, but beforehand I was a little depressed at the prospect of surviving on mushroom risotto (I swear that mushroom risotto and spinach and ricotta canelloni are the only vegetarian dishes Italian restaurants ever serve) and these crackers:

I don't think you should actually keep these in your pocket.

I actually ended up eating quite a lot of these crackers for breakfast every day. I didn't mind though, because it was actually pretty easy to avoid both gluten AND meat in Rome. A restaurant close to the Spanish Steps had menus that clearly stated gluten free pasta was an option (at no extra charge people!), so we had our lunch there on day one of our holiday. The pasta was a little gluggy, but at least that meant I could be confident it was definitely gluten free.

That evening we also managed to find a place that served some delicious polenta.

MUSHROOMS AND POLENTA!

Matt was also very pleased that he could order a pizza without cheese. It's not gluten free, but I thought you might want to see it anyway.

Apparently it was delicious.

I have no idea what this place was called (I'm sorry. We had a lot of wine). I think it was somewhere near Via Urbana.


The following night we decided to try a restaurant that I read about on this blog. Ristorante Renovatio was amazing. It was so good, we went there two nights in a row. They have a gluten free section of their menu and there was no mention of mushroom risotto. Yay!

Night 1:

My gluten free beer (the waiter poured the beer, hence the massive head).

Please note that this beer was not $10 a bottle (Perth, you suck).

My vegetarian AND gluten free pizza (it was great).

My gluten free dessert.

Night 2 (Matt's birthday!):

Even though it was his birthday, Matt very kindly ordered gluten free ravioli just so I could try some. It was lovely.

The flag means it's gluten free.

This was the first calzone I had had in about 7 years.

Vegetarian, gluten free and delicious.

Everything I ate at this restaurant was fantastic, but I think the best part was my dessert on our second visit.

Gluten free profiteroles. OMFG!

Obviously I didn't need to panic about surviving in Rome for four days.