Pizza Express has definitely rocketed up my list of places to visit recently after I discovered there are in fact Pizza Express dairy free options, as well as gluten free.
Of course we all know by now that Pizza Express have provided us with Gluten Free Pizza Bases for a few years. For many people this has been a life saver. It might not be your absolute favourite gluten free pizza base but it is definitely up there & is great when you are out with friends and want to eat normally alongside everybody else. I will still forever wish they would serve me some gluten free dough balls or some gluten free cheesy garlic bread like they do at Dough in the Northern Quarter, Manchester… but we can dream!
Pizza Express do have a stupidly delicious gluten free starter on the menu at present however, that made me not care ‘so’ much about the lack of gluten free dough balls. The Risotto Fresco is insanely good and is the perfect amount to still give you enough room for your gluten free Pizza! The Risotto Fresco is creamy & full of tasty oak-roasted salmon & Gran Milano cheese, it is seasoned perfectly & I would highly recommend it. (I am not usually a starter girl as I never want to spoil my main but this totally hit the spot)
Obviously in terms of main I couldn’t choose anything except my favourite gluten free pizza.. The American. Simple as, the classic pepperoni was and still is my favourite in Pizza Express!
However, for once, ENOUGH ABOUT GLUTEN FREE! This post was for me to mention a new discovery for me in terms of the Pizza Express Dairy Free offerings! Now don’t get too excited, there isn’t any dairy free cheese just yet in Pizza Express… but in the past the only way for Mark to eat at Pizza Express was to ask for his pizza without cheese. Pizza Express still state this on their website: “Unfortunately we don’t have a dairy / lactose free cheese but you can leave the cheese off any pizza of your choice.” However upon reading further on their site under the Pizza Express Dairy Free FAQ I found this:
“You are also permitted to bring in your own cheese to top a pizza provided it is in a sealed pack, in date and the date is clearly visible.”
Now I know bringing your own vegan/dairy free cheese might not be for everyone and isn’t always the most convenient thing to do, but for us this was amazing news! We always have vegan/dairy free cheese in the fridge so for us it was very easy to just bring some along with us in a bag. On this occasion we chose to bring some Violife which is definitely one of the very best vegan cheeses around, there are so many different flavours of it I cannot wait to try. On other occasions however I think we would be tempted to take MozzaRisella; I absolutely love MozzaRisella on a pizza, it works amazingly.
When we ordered our meals at Pizza Express it was very straightforward and they understood exactly what we were asking for with the dairy free cheese. I ordered my gluten free risotto starter & pizza and then Mark ordered his pizza. He asked for the mozzarella cheese to be removed and replaced with his Violife dairy free. The waitress was very helpful and made sure we felt happy with the ‘dairy free procedure!’ She explained that it would all be done very separately so to remove any cross contamination. When our main courses arrived our waitress went through each of our orders once more just to make sure everything was correct. This was really positive and made Mark and I very reassured.
Mark’s pizza looked amazing with the Violife Cheese covering it. Violife is a great melting cheese and the guys at Pizza Express had definitely taken the time to scatter it across the pizza perfectly and allowed it to melt. Mark was over the moon being able to eat a pizza with cheese on it at Pizza Express. Let’s face it a pizza without cheese just doesn’t quite hit the spot!
Maybe in the future Pizza Express might jump on the Dairy Free Cheese Wagon, but for now, this is a great option and I thank Pizza Express for this. I love the Gluten Free American Pizza & we live 5 minutes away from our local restaurant so this is perfect news for us.
What do you think about the Pizza Express dairy free option of allowing you to bring in your own cheese? Let me know on Facebook or Twitter.
Thanks for reading,
Becky xxx
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Pizza Express Dairy Free Update 2015! Also Gluten Free