Antonio Alderuccio with his girlfriend Anaïs Nicolas

CHEF Antonio Alderuccio might make you cry.

He’s been known to do it before, and he expects he will do it again.

That’s because, as the founder and chef patron of Plant Club – the capital’s first gluten-free and plant-based Italian restaurant – based in Newington Green, he gives people a dining experience some had given up all hope of ever experiencing.

Mr Alderuccio said: “They cry; we have customers who come here, they have a beer and a Margarita, a pizza, which is basic you know, but they didn’t do any of that for five years. So they cry when they come here. It means a lot to me. I’m changing for real something [in someone’s life].”

In particular, customers who have coeliac disease, an allergy to gluten, are able to come and enjoy pizza and pasta – staples of Italian fare – without fear of becoming ill, as gluten is entirely absent from the kitchen.

He himself became vegan a few years ago, and began cooking gluten-free food after developing an intolerance to it.

One of his three-year-old coeliac customers had a rabbit-shaped pizza named after her, Pizza Vicki.

One of Plant Club’s gluten-free and vegan-friendly pizza creations

Mr Alderuccio, who runs the business with Daniele Inn Rivolta, added: “We love it. And I think there is more satisfaction to this than having just a busy restaurant and doing what everybody else does. We kind of help the community and I love it. We can have 200 covers in Oxford Street, where I used to work but it had no soul, and by the end of the shift everyone was upset. We’ve got soul.”

With 45 covers and a team of seven, Plant Club is open from Thursday to Sunday with plans to open on Wednesday.

Mr Alderuccio is now looking to find a permanent home for his restaurant as his time at the temporary shared space he has been renting in Green Lanes comes to an end, and the business expands.

“We love Islington,” he said, explaining they are looking mostly in the borough after previously running a restaurant in Hackney.

While much of his customer base is in east London, he is attached to Islington’s historic reputation as the capital’s Little Italy, and is attracted to its more grown-up scene.

He added: “I prefer this area than Hackney. I find this area more adapted for the kind of stage in my age where I am.

“Hackney is more like a ‘hang out’ spot. I find Newington Green a very welcoming spot, but we are just browsing around at the moment.”