Exploring the Dolomites doesn’t mean giving up great food our Gluten Free Dolomites guide shares tips and advice for enjoying delicious, safe, and worry-free meals while discovering the mountains. I’ve been diagnosed in 2016 after my first pregnancy and after almost 10 years of living in the Dolomites and being coeliac, well, about time I wrote a blog post about this!

If you don’t know me yet, I’m Nadia and I live and work in the Dolomites, where I also love to spend my free time, rain or shine, cold or warm. Like everyone diagnosed with the celiac desease, you might have experienced some difficulties especially when travelling and needing to grab lunch/dinner when out. Luckily in the 90s a day in the mountains more often than not was equal to “pranzo al sacco” , as we say in italian, meaning my mother would have prepared panini for everyone.

Fast forward to a few years later and here I was, veeery anxious the first times when I needed to go for a hike or skiing and wondering if I would have been able to get something gluten free to eat.

Spoiler: I developed an interactive map, which is ideal to plan and uplevel your time in the Dolomites. One of the first reasons for this was purely selfish, lol. To always have something at hand that can point you in the right direction for lunch and dinner is fundemental when I am around, especially on holiday. One of the categories you can select in the map is, of course, “Gluten free”.

There is no way around this: the Dolomites ARE NOT the best place to be as far as for a gluten free diet. I won’t deny it. I’m not sure if it’s for the german tradition influence (Austria and Germany are definitely not the best place for celiacs too). But this doesn’t mean there isn’t anything around for you. First thing, as many others may have noticed when visiting for the first time in the off season, there are certain times of the year when entire valleys “shut down”. Everyone deserves some rest at some point and cable cars and such need to be checked before a new season kicks in. This means that usually from mid-October to the beginning of December and from mid April to the beginning of June or May’s ending, cableways are closed and a lot of restaurants/refugios are closed as well.

Truth be told these are exactly the seasons when I love the Dolomites for hiking the most, with all the weather uncertainty that this brings. Normally I would pack a panino or something, like in the good old times, cause it’s very rare to find something open then, even more so if you need it to be gluten free.

The rest of the year I discovered/found out a consistent bunch of places where I can go and eat safely, I won’t go into too much detail in this blog post, I will post other blog post in the future to talk about a few of them. I wanted to firstly tell in broad terms about what to care for when out and about – and hungry- in the Dolomites.

You might find yourself without a plan, especially while hiking or in the more remote spots, it’s not impossible to find safe gluten free dishes even then. Remember that polenta, a traditional alpine dish is made out of corn flour, sometimes buckwheat too, but be cautious and always ask if the corn flour is 100% gluten free, as it happens a lot, especially with large quantities, that it contains wheat as well. Würstel and most sausages are safe most of the times, just be mindful that they’re not contaminated in the kitchen (see bread on the grill and such…). Buckwheat cake….oh BUCKWHEAT CAKE I adore you, again check to know if it’s buckwheat only or if there’s wheat too. When around dairy farms you can probably eat delicious food (if you don’t have problems with lactose too of course). Yoghurt with forest berries, panna cotta and ice-creams being my favourites.

A plate of cured meat and cheese (tagliere misto) is also a solid choice when other things fail. Always ask to keep it away from bread or anything else containing wheat or other gluten-containing cereals.

Finally if you happen to be in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region, probably the wildest area of the Dolomites, keep frico as your North Star! The original recipe doesn’t contain flour at all, ask to be sure, but I can assure you I could live of frico for a good straight week or so ;P

I hope this blog entry will give you the right confidence for your gluten free time in the Dolomites ;)