Pizza Rustica

Awful. I sit down, do you have gluten-free menu items? What? Do you have gluten-free menu items? I don't even know what that is. Let me check.< 10 minutes later> have you gotten your gluten-free menu? No I haven't. I'll check. Would you like something to drink? Yes I'll have a Diet Coke. We don't have that. Diet Pepsi? No. What? Mumble, mumble. I left

Celiac friendly?

No

While they don't serve GF pizza, the owner/chef Michelle is fantastic and understands gluten issues. She told me that she stopped serving GF pizza because she noticed that by the end of the day, there was flour floating around in air around the pizza oven and the contamination issues were too great to feel good about serving GF pizza. She suggested the eggplant parm which is roasted eggplant (in olive oil, no breading) and absolutely delicious. I ended up going back for dinner because I couldn't risk contamination (big work event tomorrow) and she said she'd been thinking of me and had just gone through the menu circling all the GF options. I almost took off one star because she herself said that she is still trying to educate her staff to understand what gluten is and if I didn't speak with her earlier, there was a good chance her servers wouldn't be able to speak knowledgeably about what was GF. Given she now has a circled menu at the bar, people can walk over and ask to see that menu though! I can't recommend Pizza Rustica highly enough because she really understands how hard it is to eat out safely. Located right near U Penn/Wharton, it's a great option if you're visiting Philly like I am and had no idea where to eat! Just make sure to state no bread, no croutons just in case for the servers if she/Michelle doesn't take your order.

Celiac friendly?

Yes