A newlywed couple from Charleston, South Carolina chose Molina, on Lake Como, for the first stop of their honeymoon — a small, intimate apartment in a quiet corner of the lake, away from the crowds of the more famous towns. There was just one detail that needed real attention before booking anything: the bride is celiac, and after a long flight and a first day of travel, the last thing either of them wanted was to spend their first evening as a married couple parsing an unfamiliar restaurant menu in a second language, hoping the kitchen understood cross-contamination.
That’s precisely the situation a private chef solves best.
Celiac isn't a preference — it's treated as a medical requirement
There’s a meaningful difference between a restaurant that offers “a gluten-free option” and a kitchen that plans the entire menu around a celiac guest before a single ingredient is bought. For this couple, the meal was designed around Percorso Bellagio — the most elegant and premium of the set menus built for my international guests — adapted end to end so both bride and groom ate the same dishes, at the same table, with nothing held back or simplified.
The pasta course was potato gnocchi, made with rice flour rather than wheat — not purely as a gluten-free workaround, but because rice flour genuinely produces a softer, less rubbery gnocchi, gluten-free being a welcome side effect of a better texture, not the reason for the choice. They were served with a fish sauce built from a stock made in-house, emulsified with rendered fish fat and thickened with sea bass liver — an ingredient most kitchens discard, treated here as the key to a velvety, silky sauce rather than something to waste. Not to mention the umami enhancement! The plate was finished with seared pieces of monkfish and taggiasca olives.
The menu opened with a crab and lobster salad, and closed with a mulberry tartlet on a sweet shortcrust base — the pastry, like the gnocchi, made with rice flour, for the same reason: a more delicate result, gluten-free without ever reading as a compromise.
For a first dinner as a married couple, the goal wasn’t just “safe food.” It was Percorso Bellagio, in full, exactly as it was designed — nobody at the table eating a scaled-down version of anything.
Beyond this menu: how gluten-free is handled more broadly
Percorso Bellagio isn’t the only option built this way. The gluten-free pasta course usually draws from a wide, constantly evolving range of risottos — naturally gluten-free and never repetitive across visits. Desserts built around custard-based creams are made gluten-free as a matter of course. Where a starter would normally include a gluten-containing element, that piece is simply swapped for a celiac-safe version rather than removed or left out.
Whichever solution fits the specific menu, the underlying approach doesn’t change: a celiac guest is never treated as a limitation to work around. It’s treated as a reason to make sure the memory of that dinner is a good one, despite — or because of — the care it took to get there.
Why a villa in Molina makes this easier, not harder
Molina is a hamlet, not a town with a restaurant row — which for most travelers means fewer dining choices nearby. For a couple managing a serious dietary restriction, though, a quiet, intimate apartment is actually the better setting: no menu misread in translation, no explaining celiac disease to a waiter under time pressure, no wondering after the fact whether the kitchen truly kept things separate.
The evening was built around:
- A conversation ahead of time covering the bride’s specific celiac needs, confirming a strict protocol rather than a general sensitivity, and choosing Percorso Bellagio as the menu to adapt.
- Every course of the menu made gluten-free, using rice flour for both the gnocchi and the tartlet’s shortcrust — not as a substitution bolted onto the original recipe, but built into the dish from the start.
- Cooking done for this one meal only, nothing else — unlike a restaurant kitchen juggling dozens of different orders at once, there’s no wheat flour, no regular breadcrumbs, no other dish in progress anywhere near the gluten-free preparation. The risk of contamination isn’t managed with extra care; it’s removed at the root, because nothing else is being cooked at the same time.
- The kitchen left spotless, so the only thing waiting for the couple afterward was the rest of their evening.
Why this matters more on Lake Como specifically
Travelers who manage celiac disease often arrive in Italy nervous, precisely because Italian cuisine is so pasta and bread-forward — ironically, it’s also a country where gluten-free cooking, done properly, is taken seriously and widely available if you know where to look. On Lake Como, where towns like Molina are small and dining options limited, having a chef come to the apartment removes the guesswork entirely, and turns a source of pre-trip anxiety into one of the more memorable evenings of the honeymoon.
Good to know
- Set menus like Percorso Bellagio can be adapted entirely gluten-free, course by course, without either guest eating a scaled-down version of anything.
- The gluten-free pasta course usually draws from a wide, constantly updated range of risottos; dessert creams are made gluten-free as standard.
- Where a starter includes a gluten-containing element, it’s simply swapped for a celiac-safe version rather than removed.
- Works in any apartment or villa kitchen in Molina and across Lake Como, with gluten-free ingredients sourced specifically for the occasion.
If you’re planning a honeymoon or a celebration on Lake Como with a celiac or gluten-free guest in the group, get in touch ahead of time so the menu, sourcing, and kitchen protocol can be planned properly, not improvised on the night.