Graziano's Brick Oven Pizza

Graziano's is a Niles staple for quite some time. I remember in the late 1990's being there one night for dinner when the Bull's were going for their 2nd three-pete championship. The decor inside at the time was tons of cans of fresh tomatoes for their sauce. They have since updated the decor to retro Italy, and started to serve gluten free. I'll be honest it's been that long since I've been there.

We got there just before the dinner rush. It does get really busy come 7:00. The gluten free items are marked in the regular menu, and expand beyond typical pasta. They were also announcing they just started serving gluten free pizza. You do have to dig a bit on their website to find the gluten free menu (which is listed on the basic menu in the restaurant), which does not do justice to the full listing of items they have available.

Looking over the menu they had a lot of options from appetizers, salads and entrees even gelato for dessert. I was intrigued by the Portobello parmesan. I asked the server if it was something that could be made gluten free, because I wasn't sure if the mushrooms were breaded. He explained that the mushrooms were fresh grilled and could be made with the gluten free cork screw pasta. He told me he'd double check to make sure the parmesan was gluten free, which took me by surprise, but I figure if he was unsure about gluten free, this was a good way for him to check and make sure he had correct information. My dad said my "find" on the menu peaked his interest so he got the same thing, but gluten-full. We saw the server go over to the manager and start asking her questions, and came back with the affirmative that it was gluten free, and that it's a great dish. 

The waiter asked if it was ok to bring a regular bread basket out, they didn't have any gluten free bread, my dad opted to have a few pieces of bread. When our food came out, I was ok with them not having gluten free bread, the portion size was HUGE! I really thought the server said there was A Portobello mushroom on top, we each had 3 mushrooms smothered with cheese. The only difference was his dish was on angel hair pasta, and mine was corkscrew pasta. It was good, flavorful and gave me a couple days of leftovers.

I give them 4 dragonflies I am looking forward to go back, I noticed someone the next table over had the grilled chicken parmesan over corkscrew pasta, so I figured it was a good sign others were ordering gluten free as well. The server seemed to take care in making sure my meal was safe, and there was a good variety of items to order from. Plus it was so good!