Pizza Express

Through the joys of social networking, I learnt yesterday that Pizza Express are the next restaurant to jump on the gluten free bandwagon.  Great news! 

I then did a bit of research and was quite disappointed after finding out that they'd trialed this in a few of their branches last year. It would seem that back then, they were targetting the fad dieters, even stating on their menu "We know lots of you are now going gluten free.." They also had a disclaimer stating that, although the pizza bases were gluten free, because they used flour in their fresh dough, the couldn't guarantee that they won't contain any gluten. Pointless for anyone with coeliac disease, and not worth the risk!

I have since found out that, like Domino's and Pizza Hut, Pizza Express have been working closely with Coeliac UK to produce a safe menu for coeliacs, not just people who are going gluten free as a lifestyle choice.

Take a look at the e-mail below:

Hello, 

In the last few months you have contacted us to ask about gluten-free options on our menu, so I wanted to write to you with what I hope you will agree is some great news. 

From Tuesday 30th April, PizzaExpress will be offering an exciting new range of dishes that have been certified as ‘No Gluten Containing Ingredients’ (NGCI) by Coeliac UK. Given our love for pizza, we’re particularly pleased to tell you that you’ll be able to order nearly all of our pizza recipes, with the exception of just a couple of ingredients, on a gluten-free classic pizza base. We’ll also have a number of other gluten-free dishes for you to choose from, including a new Risotto d’Oro starter, a gluten-free Brownie for dessert and even a gluten-free Pilsner beer.  

To help us create these new dishes, we’ve been working closely with Coeliac UK to make sure that we fully understand the changes we can make in our kitchens and with our teams. This way we hope that you can have confidence when ordering gluten-free products in our restaurants.
For example, every one of our team members has been trained to deliver gluten-free dishes to our customers safely. We have also taken a number of steps to prepare our kitchens for our new menu, including clear labelling and storage of gluten-free ingredients, as well as new equipment to be used only for the preparation of gluten-free food. Finally, our pizzaiolos use flour to toss and stretch our dough in our restaurant kitchens so, to avoid any risk of cross-contamination, we have replaced all the flour used in these kitchens with a new blend that is gluten-free.  

We sent our new menu off for testing and we’re very pleased to say that all the results showed that our dishes either had untraceable amounts of gluten, or fell within the accepted parameters for gluten-free food. We will, of course, continue to carry out these tests so that you can always be confident in the food that you order in our restaurants.  

Thank you for waiting while we’ve worked to ensure we do our gluten-free food the right way. 

We hope that you love it as much as we do.  

Yours sincerely,
PizzaExpress Restaurants Ltd

Thankfully, my skepticism has been alleviated now I know that they've created their menu with Coeliac UK, rather than just tailoring to fad dieters, and I now can't wait to try their new menu!