He’s been rated Australia’s best pizzaiolo. Now, for just one night a month, he’s turning over his enormously popular Italian restaurant to gluten-free dining.
It wasn’t just the feedback from coeliacs and gluten-sensitive diners that registered with Mauricio Zarate Castillo and Stefano Spataro when they launched a gluten-free night at Elementi, their hugely popular Paddington restaurant.
“That first service, we had a lot of regulars who don’t have a problem with gluten, but were just curious,” Zarate Castillo says. “Or maybe they were bringing in a partner who was a coeliac.
“They would say, ‘If you hadn’t told me that it was gluten-free, I wouldn’t notice.’ That stuck with us.”
But you’d expect Elementi to nail this. After opening in a homey spot on Given Terrace in 2021, it quickly developed a reputation for punching out some of Brisbane’s best woodfired pizza, alongside a dynamic seasonal menu of starters, pastas and mains. The place would be packed most nights of the week.
Things stepped up a notch in 2023 when Spataro competed in the World Pizza Championships in Italy against 450 pizzaioli from 52 countries. Spataro finished in the top 100 in the classic pizza category, and in the top 40 in the gluten-free category, despite gluten-free pizza not being on the Elementi menu at the time.
Spataro returned in 2024 and improved in each category, and again this year in April to place 51st out of 353 for classic pizza and 40th out of 99 for Neapolitan pizza. But he shot up in the gluten-free category, in particular, finishing joint seventh out of 79 competitors. He was the top-ranked Australian chef across the entire 2025 competition.
Spataro says the results over the last three years have been satisfying, but that it was an interview on ABC Radio in February last year that inspired the Elementi team to introduce a gluten-free night to the restaurant.
“I was very proud of my achievement but when I talked about the gluten-free result on the radio, a lot of people started enquiring, wanting to try it,” he says.
“They basically threw us under the bus and we had to figure out how to do it,” Zarate Castillo jokes.
Spataro and Zarate Castillo hadn’t previously considered a gluten-free menu due to cross-contamination concerns.
“We couldn’t make it as safe as we would like,” Zarate Castillo says. “Regardless of whether we do it in the oven in the kitchen or the pizza oven [out front], there was going to be flour everywhere, and we want to make it as friendly as we can.
“For coeliacs or people with a high sensitivity, we just want the venue to be completely and absolutely free on that day at least.”
Instead, they eventually decided to dedicate one Wednesday a month to cook an abbreviated selection of pizza, pasta, entrees and mains that’s entirely gluten free. They debuted the menu in June.
“We thought we’d try it out and see how it evolves, and so far we’ve had no problems,” Zarate Castillo says. “It’s been a great success with coeliacs. They’ve come back again and again.”
Elementi’s Gluten-Free Wednesday menu is a slightly stripped-down take on the restaurant’s typical menu.
It changes slightly depending on the seasons but expect starters such as sauteed porcini mushrooms with ricotta, a beetroot emulsion and herbs; rice croquettes served with mushroom ragu, smoked mozzarella and truffle mayonnaise; and pan-seared cuttlefish with chickpeas, and a sweet and sour rosemary infusion.
There’s also a mix of mains and pastas such as a braised duck ragu and vegetable penne, pumpkin cream risotto with taleggio and toasted pepitas, potato gnocchi with a tomato sugo, mozzarella and basil, and braised beef cheeks served with lemon-infused potato puree and a red wine jus.
But many diners will be turning straight to the woodfired pizza menu, which includes pizzas such as the Bufalina (tomato sugo, buffalo mozzarella, basil, extra virgin olive oil), the Lasagna (slow-cooked beef and tomato ragu, mozzarella, bechamel, Grana Padano, basil) and the Salsiccia (mozzarella, house-made pork sausage, mixed mushrooms and parmesan).
“There’s no real secret to making good gluten-free pizza,” Spataro says. “You try to understand how different [gluten free] flours work … and how they mesh together to get the same effect as gluten.
“I’ve been researching for a long time, and you discover certain things. For example, I was looking at gluten-free panettone and trying to understand how to make this thing, because the gluten in a normal panettone really helps it rise. And I discovered a particular recipe that was using psyllium and carob seeds, so I decided to introduce those to my pizza dough.”
Beyond entrees, mains and pizza, there’s a short menu of sides and desserts.
“We could do this a different way, perhaps, and get gluten-free products from elsewhere, but it’s important for us at Elementi to make as much as possible in-house,” Spataro says.
“It needs to be gluten-free, but it also needs to be Elementi.”
Elementi’s next Gluten-Free Wednesday menu will run October 29.
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Matt Shea is Food and Culture Editor at Brisbane Times. He is a former editor and editor-at-large at Broadsheet Brisbane, and has written for Escape, Qantas Magazine, the Guardian, Jetstar Magazine and SilverKris, among many others.
