A Gluten Free Gal’s Dream: Joe and Pat’s Pizzeria

By Written by Kristen Oliveri on April 6th, 2010

If someone asked me a few weeks ago what I missed the most about sticking to a gluten free diet, I would’ve said pizza. But, luckily that isn’t the case anymore. One of my favorite local Staten Island pizza joints, Joe and Pat’s Pizzeria, has gotten with the program and introduced an extensive GF menu complete with pastas, pizzas, rice balls, mozzarella sticks and more. The pizza joint, which is an institution on the Island of Staten, has always had the best thin-crust pizza around, so I went there Friday night to see if the GF items made the cut.

They key to GF pizza is the crust, in my humble opinion. I think you need to almost burn it to get that crispy texture from the pizza or you run the risk of having it become soggy. Joe and Pat’s does a great job of making the crust perfectly crispy. I ordered my own personal GF pie with my favorite vodka sauce topping. It was cheesy and saucy without being over the top. I felt like a fellow food lover once again as I was able to share a slice with friends and family while they chowed down on the real (flour-filled) thing.

Pizza was not the only thing that stood out on the GF menu. Chef A.J. Pappalardo dazzled us with a cold seafood salad that was extremely fresh and simple, dressed with a light olive oil and lemon dressing. It was a perfect pizza companion; light enough not to way us down with the pizza and tasty enough to keep us going back for seconds. We finished the meal off with GF rice-based pasta in a red clam sauce. Dinner companions of mine marveled at the GF pasta and swore that had I not told them it was rice pasta, they would have never guessed.

I’m not done just yet with Joe and Pat’s. I couldn’t shove everything down in one sitting. Next on the agenda to try are the new GF mozzarella sticks and rice balls. There are certain types of foods I thought I’d never be able to eat when I was diagnosed as gluten intolerant, but there are many new chefs and restaurants challenging those very things and creating healthy, delicious GF alternatives that many people are begging for. The GF fun is certainly not over at Joe and Pat’s.