Gluten free pizza restaurant Madrid - Grosso Napoletano Senza Glutine

Gluten-free pizza restaurant in Madrid

Any kind of 100% gluten-free restaurant in Madrid is welcome, for celiac disease sufferers such as myself in particular, due to the risk of contamination at a regular restaurant, and now we have a pizzeria. we can safely enjoy.

Grosso Napoletano Senza Glutine is the new Gluten-free concept from Grosso Napoletano, Senza Glutine meaning gluten-free/sin gluten in Italian.

This new location, located at Calle de Fernando VI, 23, 28004 Madrid, close to metro stations Chueca and Alonso Martinez looks upscale and attracted a lot of admirers who stopped to look.

Already established in Madrid since 2017, Grosso Napoletano has a solid reputation for great stone-baked pizzas, often coming top of polls for the best pizza in Madrid and also the top 50 pizzerias in Europe. Congratulations to founders Jorge de Blas, who manages the business side, and Hugo Rodriguez de Prada, the gastronomical side!

Sandwichboard outside the restaurant mentioning ordering online for collection

Let’s party,because there’s No Gluten!

In some ways the success is down to authenticity, 80% of the ingredients come from Italy, and the custom wood-burning oven is made by artisan makers “Forni Grimaldi” based in Naples. The dough is double fermented over 48 hours to give that perfect elasticity.

At the time of writing, there are six starters on offer. Burrata, Mozarrela with pumpkin, Veal with tuna and anchovies, Caprese with avocado, beef carpaccio, and Smoked Provola melted in the oven with tomato sauce and herbs. Sounds amazing, doesn’t it!

There at twelve pizzas to choose from, the usual classics such as Margherita, Diavola, four seasons, calzone etc they also offer vegan and white sauce bases for those who aren’t keen on tomato. The pizza dough is made from a blend of buckwheat and rice flour, both naturally gluten-free.

Prices start at 10,90€ for Margherita and vegan prices and then jump to 13,90€ and then 14,90€ for the most expensive. I opted for the mid-priced Diavola pizza whilst my wife opted for the ham and mushroom “Prosciutto E Funghi”. Both pizzas were delicious and you almost couldn’t tell them from a non-gluten-free pizza. As for the prices, it’s worth noting that 1€ goes to the NGO Flores de Kiskeya in Haiti.

“Prosciutto E Funghi” or “Farmhouse” ham and mushroom pizza along with a bottle of extra spicy extra olive oil in the background.

Diavola

I would have preferred a bit more topping, meat and spice on my pizza, thankfully there was spicy oil that WAS genuinely spicy available on the table. Actually, we weren’t sitting at a table, we were at a window bar. As we were only two people and most tables were reserved for 4 or more people, including some smart-looking rounded booths.

Incidentally, the extra spicy extra virgin olive oil is available to take home for 7,90€ a bottle. Something I’ll consider next time I visit.

A sneaky view of the interior and mix of clientele through a mirror.

When we arrived at 19:45 for our reservation, easily made online through their website, on a Friday night (later times were already taken) it was fairly quiet but there were some diners already there (the kitchen doesn’t close in the afternoon I think. It quickly became busy and potential diners without reservations were turned away. There was a nice vibe, music playing loud enough to add atmosphere but not too loud that you needed to raise your voice to talk to someone.

Pizzaiolos prepare pizzas in the open kitchen, in the foreground one of the booths and then bars around the food preparation area. Note the huge amount of boxes for takeaway on the left.

As is common in times of COVID, restaurants require you to scan a QR code to access the menu. The waiter turned up to take our drinks order and of course, we hadn’t gotten around to checking out the drinks part of the menu yet, our eyes drinking in the delicious-sounding items on the menu, trying to whittle down the choices to one or two to choose from.

Daura Märzen from the Estrella Damm company. Gluten-free and double malted. 7.2% alcohol.

On the subject of drinks, the waiter was able to tell me that EVERYTHING on the menu was gluten-free and suitable for celiacs, apart from a handful of regular beers, he quickly listed the gluten-free beers and I chose a Marzen beer from Daura Damm, a double fermented beer with around 7.2% alcohol and less than 3 parts per million of gluten. This makes it perfectly fine for Celiacs. It was nice to have a double malted beer for a change and this one was again tasty and I didn’t notice it being much different to their Voll Damm product which I used to drink in pre-celiac days.

White Tiramisu. Mascarpone cream and white chocolate with an Italian sponge base, amaretto and cafe

Having decided to skip the starters, and after having wolfed down the pizza, it was time to consider desserts. Being celiac, the dessert course is usually the one I can’t partake in unless I want a piece of fruit, something I definitely wasn’t going to opt for with all gluten-free options for dessert. Usually, I’m not allowed to eat Tiramisu for dessert because my wife makes the best one, but today she said it was ok and because she’s struggled to find gluten-free ladyfingers to make one suitable for me at home.

The white tiramisu (Tiramisu Bianco) on the menu here for 6,50€ is described as being Mascarpone cream and white chocolate with an Italian sponge base, amaretto and cafe. Delicious, heavier than a regular Tiramisu, probably due to the thicker cream containing white chocolate. Served, hipster-style, in a jar and with two teaspoons it was a nice amount to share.

The restaurant is based on one floor, there seems to be step-free entry and large unisex disabled person bathroom. Always good to see here. Hand gel on entry and sufficient spacing.

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All in all what are my thoughts? I definitely enjoyed my first gluten-free pizza in Madrid. It was better than my pizza experience in Paris, though the restaurant there had a more extensive range of dishes. Perhaps next time I’ll see if I can grab a later reservation and try three courses with a bigger appetite, that or I’ll opt for take-away. Not forgetting to also pick up a bottle of their extra spicy oil.

I've been back twice since writing this post. I went once for lunch and ordered one of their white pizzas and a starter with mozzarella balls. Very nice.
They have now launched a home delivery service. You order through the website and our order of four pizzas arrived about 40 minutes later.
I still haven't bought the spicy oil and I'm regretting it.

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Here are some links to the menus! (links open in new windows)

Restaurant menu in Spanish.

Restaurant menu in English PDF.

Go on, pin it, you know you want to!

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NAP - Authentic Pizza in Lavapies

NAP - Authentic Pizza in Lavapies

Everyone loves a pizza right? Where can one find one of Italy's most famous exports in Madrid? Everyone has their opinion, but many agree that NAP Lavapies serves authentic Pizza and they have been open for just over a year now if memory serves me. Last Saturday my wife and I finally managed to get in to NAP Lavapies on a Saturday night for Pizza.

We just had to make the effort to get there by about 9 pm!

NAP often gets mentioned on here as the best pizza in Madrid, their branch in Barcelona was definitely the best Pizza in Barcelona at the time and they would use sourdough so it was a bit different and distinctive.

We’ve tried several times to get in as we’re in Lavapies at least once a month on Saturday with Madrid wine club and by the time I’ve finished sorting that out we usually get to NAP by 930pm and there’s a 20 to 30 minute wait for a table.

Anyway to cut to the chase. We ordered:-

• Melanzane Parmigiana - 4,90€ (aubergines with cheese and tomato sauce)
• Pizza Quattro Stagioni - 8,80€
• Pizza Diavola - 9,20€
• Triamisu to share for dessert - 3,90€
• A few bottles of water - 2,00€ each, coca cola was the same price.

PROS

• All the food was very nice and made with quality ingredients.
• The prices are great.
• Service was not bad and fairly quick, we ordered a starter and they had to ask us if we were ready for the pizza.  It seems that the pizzas only take 50 seconds to cook in their wood burning oven.
• Pizzas are stone baked.
• The kinda place you go with your young friends for cheap food and alcohol, very casual.

CONS

• No bottles of Italian wine, only house wine by the glass (they don’t want you spending ages here)
• Diavola pizza was a bit lacking in meat and spiciness, definitely have had better Diavola pizzas in Spain.
• Would have preferred the bread with the starter to have been toasted so I could dip it into the melted cheese and tomato.
• Pizzas from NAP especially when I lived in Barcelona and would go used to be sour dough, now that seems to have changed, so the base isn’t as unique as it used to be and as such there are other places in Madrid that also do stone baked pizza so it’s probably not worth the trip unless you’re near one. We thought the pizzas were good but not necessarily the best in Madrid.
• Tiramisu was mostly cream, it bares little resemblance to an authentic traditional tiramisu.

CONCLUSION

Great cheap place to go and eat well for the money, not as unique as it used to be, hope it doesn’t go downhill. I’d go back again and still recommend it, I’d definitely have a different pizza next time, perhaps one of their slightly more expensive looking offerings with truffle oil. Stonebaked pizzas made in wood burning ovens are not for everyone, it's normal that there will be some ash at the bottom of the pizza and some bits can get slightly burnt. There are many styles of pizza, ones that are more crispy, others that are thicker New York Style so it's good to try a few different places with a few different styles to see what you like. Go somewhere else for dessert.

Contact Details

Calle del Ave María, 19, 28012 Madrid - It's on the border of Anton Martin and Lavapies which are the 2 nearest metro stops.

Pretty sure they don't take reservations but they supply a phone number!

Phone: 911 25 07 42

You can follow them on Facebook and with Instagram Tag #pizzerieNAP