Review of De Italiaan

2 celiac kids. I’m struggling with this review because no one got sick, which is great, and is the only reason they are getting 4 stars, but I thought the food and the execution were underwhelming.

First, I’d note that most (if not all) the reviews mention the pizza and not pasta. We thought we’d go and get pizzas there (separate oven, etc). But one of the kids really wanted pasta so we ordered 3 pizzas and a pasta dish. I did the full questioning about separate preparation etc, and the young man who was the server was very smug/smirky in a “don’t worry old man, we got this” sort of way. Generally, I don’t care if they are smug if the execute flawlessly - not the case here.

The only pasta style they had GF that night was penne, which I’m glad I asked. The GF pizzas are actually smaller than their nonGF pizzas so it’s easy to see that difference, and they come on a plate sized for the smaller crust.

They brought out 3 pizzas, which were clearly different than the pizzas/plates at the surrounding tables. Then another server came out with the bowl of pasta - spaghetti - clearly NOT GF PENNE. She set in front of the kid who almost started eating, but I snatched it up and pointed out that only the penne was GF. She was flustered and went to the smug guy to talk about it. She came back and said he made a mistake in how it was entered in the computer. They said “we’ll hurry up a replacement” - which basically made me super nervous. When the very small bowl of penne arrived bathing in pasta water with some mealy ground meat mixed in, it was pretty bad. Kiddo ate the noodles only, which I usually wouldn’t let slide, but in this case I tried it and was surprised she even ate that much.

Long story short, the pizza was decent and had meat topping options if that’s important to you. If not, I’d go to Mastino V for Pizza instead. And for pasta - I’d go to the Spaghetteria (better and more for about the same price) or Cafe Piazza (bit more expensive but great).