Piez Bistro offers vegan, dairy-free, paleo and additive-free options, just to name a few

Living with special dietary needs can make eating out complicated, or sometimes, even impossible. But the people behind in the Portland Hills Centre want to make eating out not just easy for patrons with dietary needs, but also delicious for everyone.

Heather Murray handles the commercial leasing for the Portland Hills Centre in Dartmouth, and she and other tenants wanted a place in the centre to grab a slice of pizza. Murray, who has a passion for cooking, had the opportunity to take on the project herself.

Murray also has a daughter with coeliac disease, which prevents her from eating anything with gluten. Knowing how tough it can be to find a good place to eat when someone in the family has special dietary needs, and even tougher to find such an eatery where the food is tasty to boot, she set out to open a restaurant that would go the extra mile to make the dining experience hassle-free for everyone.

“My daughter has celiac, and when she was younger, there was no place to get gluten-free stuff,” says Murray, whose entire menu — save for a few meat pies — is completely free of gluten. “For years and years, we talked about having a restaurant that was essentially gluten-free, so that my daughter, and every other coeliac that I knew of, could have a great place to eat anything.”

It’s not just people with celiac disease who can come to Piez without worry — the menu quickly evolved to have vegan, dairy-free, paleo, and additive-free options, just to name a few. When a customer first comes in to Piez, head chef Leslie Hull and the other cooks will go over all their dietary needs with them, so on future visits, they never have to worry about what’s in their food.

“They come in very skeptical. They leave, and [Hull will] say, ‘I converted another one,’” says Murray, who is familiar with the dietary needs of many of her customers. “She knows all the customers that come in. A lot of people just come in and say, ‘feed me.’ She just knows what they need, knows what they like.”

Nan Bowlan is a regular customer at Piez, who has a severe problem when it comes to consuming MSG.

“A lot of MSG is hidden in preservatives. When I go to a place, I just simply make it short and say I can’t have preservatives, to cover myself. I have to – it’s a very serious problem with me,” says Bowlan, who says that she doesn’t have to give the staff such a warning at Piez. “I had my first session with Leslie, and Leslie’s wonderful. I told her all my issues, and I don’t have an issue here. That’s why I’m here frequently.”

That’s not to say that the food is only for people with dietary needs — Murray prides herself knowing that someone who has absolutely no special dietary needs whatsoever will simply find the food tasty.

“We wanted to have that, so if you don’t have any dietary needs, any of that kind of stuff, you just come here to eat because it tastes so darn good,” says Murray. “Or to not even know you ate that way.”

Piez opened in January — it’s barely a year old — but already, it’s been nominated for a business award by the Halifax Chamber of Commerce. Shortly after her first anniversary in January of next year, Murray’s business could be named Best New Business of the Year.

“I was flattered, just to be nominated,” says Murray, who was chosen among 300 candidates between all six categories. “To go from there to there, for a business that’s not even a year old, is pretty exciting.”

But so far, the biggest take-away has been how the nomination process has helped her solidify just what Piez Bistro is, and where she wants to take it.

“You get a series of questions you have to send back responses to,” says Murray, who says she hadn’t considered things like where she sees the business in 10 years, or what her biggest challenges were. “Having gone through the process of answering the questions, it actually has made me sort of define what we are a little more. It’s been an awesome experience just making me really define exactly what this little restaurant is, where it’s morphing to, and what I want it to become.”

Murray wants to introduce to meals-to-go Piez in the future, in part inspired by this nomination, and there is even the possibility of a line of dog food and treats, that will cater to canine dietary needs, in the same way Piez currently caters to humans.

The final decision will be made in late January 2015, by a panel of judges, so there’s not much the public can do at this point to support the nomination, if readers like you felt so inclined. But if you wanted to put some of that good will towards something related to Piez, Murray would love it if you supported local business as much as possible.

“We’re a stalled city, and we can’t be. We need to be moving forward,” says Murray, who sources as much local product as possible. “It’d be great if people recognized that needs to happen, in general. There’s so much bubbling economy in Nova Scotia, and we have to do everything we can to support each other in business.”

Piez Bistro is located at 635 Portland Hills Drive, just down from the Portland Hills Bus Terminal, if you were interested in popping in and giving them a try. You can also visit their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/piezbistro.