I was diagnosed with coeliac disease eleven years ago. In that time I have eaten a very large number of gluten-free biscuits. I have eaten ones that crumbled into dust the moment you picked them up. Ones that tasted of cardboard with a faint suggestion of vanilla. Ones that were technically biscuit-shaped but had the texture of compressed sawdust. I have eaten gluten-free biscuits that were fine, and gluten-free biscuits that were acceptable, and gluten-free biscuits that I ate because they were there rather than because I wanted them.
I had, somewhere along the way, stopped expecting gluten-free biscuits to be genuinely good. I had lowered my standards to the point where "edible" felt like a win.
The Vicenzi Grisbi Lemon Cream Italian Biscuits changed that entirely.
The Moment I Stopped Settling
I write about food. It is, therefore, slightly embarrassing that I had accepted such a low bar for my own snacking. But coeliac disease has a way of training you out of expectation — you learn quickly that the gluten-free version of something is rarely as good as the original, and you adjust accordingly. You stop hoping and start managing.
A friend who had recently been to Italy brought back a box of Grisbi biscuits — the standard wheat version — and I watched everyone else eat them with the particular wistfulness of someone who has been managing expectations for a decade. She noticed, looked them up, and sent me a message the following week: there is a gluten-free version. I ordered them that evening.
Why the Vicenzi Grisbi Lemon Cream
The Vicenzi Grisbi Lemon Cream Italian Biscuits are made in Italy using traditional techniques, and that provenance matters. Italian biscuit-making has a long tradition of working with naturally gluten-free ingredients — almond flour, rice flour, cornmeal — and the Grisbi range reflects that heritage rather than trying to replicate a wheat-based product with substitutes. The result is a biscuit that is gluten-free by design rather than by compromise.
The lemon cream filling is the centrepiece. It is smooth and velvety, genuinely lemony rather than artificially flavoured, and the quantity is generous enough that you get filling in every bite rather than discovering it has migrated to one end of the biscuit. The shell is crumbly in the way that good Italian pastry is crumbly — it yields cleanly rather than shattering, and it has a buttery richness that most gluten-free biscuits simply do not achieve.
I found them through ALTOE's Cookies collection, which is where I would point anyone looking for genuinely good gluten-free biscuits. They also sit within the Bakery and Food Items collections, and the broader Food, Beverages & Tobacco section if you want to browse the wider range.
The 6 x 150g multipack format is also well-considered. Each 150g pack is individually sealed, which means the biscuits stay fresh and crisp between uses rather than going soft once the box is opened. For someone who has a biscuit with their afternoon coffee rather than eating a whole pack in one sitting, this matters considerably.
The First Biscuit
I ate the first one standing at the kitchen counter, which is not how I usually approach food writing but which felt appropriate given the circumstances. The shell gave way cleanly. The lemon cream was cool and smooth and genuinely, properly lemony. The whole thing held together in a way that gluten-free biscuits frequently do not.
I stood there for a moment. Then I ate another one. Then I sat down and wrote my friend a message that was, in retrospect, disproportionately emotional about a biscuit. But eleven years of managed expectations will do that to you when something finally exceeds them.
Three Months of Afternoon Coffee
The Grisbi have become a fixture of my afternoon. I work from home, I write in the mornings, and at around three o'clock I make a coffee and have two biscuits. This is a ritual I had largely abandoned after my diagnosis because nothing I could eat felt worth the ritual. The Grisbi restored it.
I have ordered the 6 x 150g multipack four times now. Each pack lasts me about a week at two biscuits a day, which means the multipack covers roughly six weeks — a sensible quantity that arrives before I have run out rather than after. The individually sealed packs have maintained their freshness and crispness consistently across all four orders.
I have also, somewhat inevitably, given them to non-coeliac friends and family without announcing they were gluten-free. The response has been uniformly positive. My mother, who is an excellent baker and has strong opinions about biscuits, asked where they were from and whether she could order some for herself. She does not have coeliac disease. She simply liked the biscuits. That is, I think, the most meaningful endorsement I can offer.
The Honest Verdict
The Vicenzi Grisbi Lemon Cream Italian Biscuits are the first gluten-free biscuit I have eaten in eleven years that I would choose over a wheat-based alternative rather than settling for them in its absence. They are genuinely good biscuits that happen to be gluten-free, rather than gluten-free biscuits that are trying to be good. That distinction is everything.
If you have coeliac disease, a gluten intolerance, or simply an interest in very good Italian biscuits, start with the Cookies collection at ALTOE. The Grisbi will be there. Order the multipack. Make a coffee. Restore the ritual.
Miriam Ashby is a food writer and recipe developer based in Cambridge. She has been living with coeliac disease for eleven years and writes about eating well within dietary constraints, the products that have genuinely surprised her, and the small rituals that make daily life more enjoyable.
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