Rustico Alexandria

My friends and I went here 2 weeks ago for restaurant week. We decided on Rustico because one of my friends has celiacs disease and is gluten free, but Rusticos menu had an incredibly wide selection of gluten free options so it sounded very promising. Unfortunately, when we arrived, we all chose the restaurant week menu and ordered our meals. My friend mentioned with her dessert order that she had a gluten allergy and thus just wanted the brownie sunday without the brownie. The waitress refused to give her the entire sunday without the brownie and insisted she just get plain vanilla ice cream, which is disappointing, but by far not the worst part of dinner. After ordering, the waitress came back and told us that although most of the menu was labeled gluten free, it was actually mostly not gluten free as everything is cooked in the same oil with gluten. Very scary that this place would label everything gluten free when that is not the case. We were lucky we mentioned the fact that my friend had an actual allergy, otherwise we would have never known. This fact then eliminated most of the menu. We asked what other options my friend had for an appetizer and a side for her steak (she ordered steak frites and the fries were not gluten free) and we were told she could have salad. When we asked if there were any other sides as the steak frites already came with salad, we were told she could have Caesar salad….so my friend’s meal consisted of salad as an appetizer, a small steak with a side of salad, and plain vanilla ice cream for dessert, which was very disappointing as the menu looked so promising before we got there. On top of this, the service was incredibly slow. It felt like it took years for the waitress to bring the bill and then run our card. Additionally, we were still charged the restaurant week price for my friends meal which consisted of mostly salad. Definitely not worth it. They should not make false gluten free claims on their menu as it is very misleading and dangerous for people with allergies. Overall, very disappointing experience.

Decent gluten-free pizza and beer. But once the server brought me regular pizza by mistake. Be sure to check out buzz bakery next door for gluten free dessert.