I can’t believe this pizza is gluten free

Fortunately, this pizza is nothing like that. The crust is puffy like a neck pillow, freckled brown from the roaring hot oven. It smells of yeast and malt. Perfectly held under pressure, it features toppings like tomato, 8-jersey double-stretch mozzarella, basil and spicy Supersta sausage ($24.50). Yet somehow, against all odds, it is gluten-free.

Lucia’s, at 2016 Shattuck St. in downtown Berkeley, has served a gluten-free pizza alongside a (hard to tell) regular version since opening in 2016. But after the arrival of award winner Sarah Palmieri earlier this year. Pizza owner Alessandro Occelli said: “The gluten-free pizza maker has never been better.”

Palmieris’ secret, or one of them, is gluten-free flour from the famous Italian mill Caputo, which indirectly contains wheat. It is a proprietary blend of ingredients such as rice flour, corn starch, some gum as a glue and wheat starch that has been separated from its gluten protein.

For celiac disease sufferers, like Palmier, it’s the gluten, not the tasty starch, that’s dangerous. Palmieri, 27, grew up near Naples, where pizza is a champion of Italian food culture, he said through an interpreter. When she was diagnosed with celiac disease at age 17, the fallout seems to have been partially plastered.

But Sarah Palmieri’s brother, Ernesto Palmieri, a pizza chef (now at Lucia’s) encouraged her to try gluten-free pizza. He did. In 2015 he won second place at the European Gluten-Free Expo in Rimini and in 2016 he won third place in the gluten-free category at the famous Pizza World Championship in Parma.

Palmieris’ real secret (Caputos gluten-free flour can actually be found online) is his delicate touch. Without the stretch provided by the gluten, the dough is prone to tearing. In a video demonstration of his technique, he presses it with his fingertips, flattening the middle and forcing air to the edge. Instead of using semolina flour (which also contains gluten) to shape the dough and put it in the oven, Lucias uses rice flour for all of its pizzas, keeping the oven safer for celiac patients. (Uccelli, the owner of Lucias, stresses that those with extreme gluten sensitivity should be aware that cross-contamination is possible in the kitchen.)

With celiac dishes in mind like Palmieri, Lucia’s entire menu includes great gluten-free accommodations. Meatballs are made with gluten-free breadcrumbs, fried items like calamari are gluten-free by default, and for every pasta dish, there’s a dental-grade gluten-free pasta from Rummo.

But the remarkable thing is Palmiris pizza. As they say in Italian, it’s perfecto.

Reach Caleb Pershan: caleb.pershan@sfchronicle.com