Travel: Gluten Free Turin

Turin in North-West Italy makes for a great weekend away. Often over-shadowed by the shopping glamour in Milan, it is a beautiful city full of historic pizzas and buildings and set against a background of snow-capped mountains. The Slow Food movement developed in Turin, hence there are tonnes of culinary gems to be discovered during your stay.

We were passing through on our way to a wedding, hence this is simply a mini guide for now, but during our short time there I found it super easy to find gluten-free food and I wanted to share that. Generally, Italy has to be one of the best countries for coeliacs – I used to live in Italy, and it has always been far ahead of the UK for gluten-free products. There are lots of treats to be discovered (see my post on Alassio for some product details).

If you don’t speak Italian, print yourself off an Italian language gluten-free restaurant card from Celiac Travel. Many places can accommodate English speakers, but always best to be prepared.

Every restaurant we went to knew what coeliac disease was and they had thorough knowledge of cross-contamination risks and the importance of strictly gluten-free food for us coeliacs. Not many people go gluten-free by choice in Italy, so an Italian friend tells me. Most Italians seem to be horrified at the prospect of not being able to have normal pizza and pasta and they take catering for coeliacs very seriously.

As an example, for my meal pictured below, the waiter helpfully told me the chips would risk cross-contamination from the fryer, but offered to make me oven-roasted rosemary potatoes to go with my salad instead…I need carbs with my salad and I was really pleased with this option.

And again, when ordering this risotto, the waiter knew which varieties were safe and reassured me that neither the stock nor the other ingredients contained gluten.

There’s one only specific place I am naming in this post, an all-time favourite of mine called Grom. This chain of gelaterias can be found across Italy and they are now fully gluten-free. You can find some of the best ice-cream I have ever had (I recommend the fior di latte and pistachio flavours)! See exhibit A.

The cones are gluten-free, as are all the flavours – it’s a fully gluten-free zone. Give their pistachio biscuits a try too if you spot them – they were delicious.

Take a look at this handy guide from Guida Torino, which lists some top gluten-free places to eat – it is in Italian, but the restaurants to try include: