No Gluten, No Problem

Gluten? Fuggedaboutit.

Flatbread Company, New England

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As I continued my travels throughout New England, I stopped in for dinner at the Flatbread Company in North Conway, New Hampshire. Founded in 1998 in Amesbury, Massachusetts, Flatbread now has seven locations, ranging from MA to NH to ME. Rumor had it that they now serve a gluten-free pizza, and I couldn’t resist checking it out, all in the name of research, of course!

Happily, the rumors are true – all locations serve gluten-free pizza, thanks to the GF pizza crusts of Nancy Plante-Bushey, the NH-based woman behind the Mommy’s Muffins vegan, gluten-free bakery. The base for her pizza crust includes brown rice flour, garbanzo bean flour, arrowroot flour, and tapioca flour, plus a few other ingredients (like yeast and vinegar).

Any of Flatbread’s pizzas can be prepared gluten-free, topped with your choice of delicious edibles, including organic vegetables and housemade, nitrate-free pepperoni. I opted for a GF wood-fired pizza topped with pepperoni, fresh basil, whole milk mozarella, and the house tomato sauce. My first bites of the pizza revealed a soft, spongy crust. It had nice flavor. Some bites tended to be a little mealy, and had a mild aftertaste. But overall, I rated the crust “very good” (though, admittedly, the more I ate the pizza, the more the crust shifted toward “average” in my personal hierarchy).

As for the toppings, the only thing worthy of special note here is that the housemade, nitrate-free pepperoni has a mild flavor, and tastes more like a sausage than a traditional pepperoni. Even so, it’s very good.

In the end, it was wonderful to plunk my tired body down into a seat at Flatbread and unabashedly devour a full GF pizza all for myself (it was the end of the my 6th consecutive day of major activity, after all!). If you’re traveling through New England, and have a craving for pizza, don’t hesitate to stop in at Flatbread.

– Pete

Comments

  1. How cool, Pete! I understand what you are saying about the rating going down as you eat additional pieces of GF pizza though. I experienced the same with the UNO pizza. Still, overall, I found it pretty good. Not soft and spongy though. More of a very thin crust and some describe it as a biscuity texture. More GF pizza options is a good thing. As a result, the crusts will get better and better I think.

    BTW, UNO is hosting my support group for a complimentary sampling of their GF foods on Thursday evening for our Feb. meeting. Frankly, I still can’t believe they are doing such a generous thing. I called and confirmed today just to make sure all was set. There will be 25 of us. Smart marketing for sure. 🙂

    Shirley

  2. Hi Shirley,
    That’s super cool about Uno hosting your support group. Really awesome! I just tasted their GF pizzas for the first time… pretty good stuff!

    Cheers, Pete

  3. There’s a Flatbread Company here on Maui that I am hoping to go try out soon. I heard rumor about the gluten-free crusts as well, and they have goat cheese for pizzas too. I’m excited to go have pizza out again. I e-mailed the company to find out if the rumor was true, and to see if the one here on Maui has the gluten-free crusts. I haven’t heard back, but here’s hoping.