New Delhi: An Italian chef has finally answered the age-old question of whether pineapple actually belongs on a pizza. And he has paid the price for it.
Chef Davide Tamburella, who worked at La Costa Restaurant and Bar in Brisbane, was fired earlier this year after he refused to oblige a customer’s request and put pineapple on a pizza.
The Italian said it was an “insult to his culture.”
But this was not the first time; the chef had turned his nose up at such a request. In fact, it was his third refusal in four years.
And that too in Australia’s Queensland, where the state has erected a 16-metre-high structure in honour of the spiky fruit. The Big Pineapple is a heritage-listed tourist attraction off the Nambour Connection Road.
For Tamburella, though, it was not a dislike for the fruit or an insult to Australia, but simply about protecting the culture of his country.
According to the Daily Mail Brisbane, Tamburella told his boss to research the cultural importance some Italians place on not putting pineapple on pizza.
However, Elliot Ingram, managing director of La Costa Restaurant and Bar, told the Daily Mail there was “more to this story than a pizza topping.”
“As recorded in the Fair Work Commission’s published decision, refusing to follow a management direction relating to a customer request was one of several matters raised during the disciplinary process,” Ingram said.
The website of the now-closed restaurant La Costa read: “We promise, it’ll only take a moment to realise you’re not in Brisbane anymore, you’ve made it to the Italian Riviera.”
But adding the fruit to a pizza was invented in 1962 by Greek-born Canadian chef Sam Panopoulos in Ontario. He named it Hawaiian pizza, after the brand of the canned fruit he used. While some love the contrast of the sweet and sour profile combatting, others still are vehemently opposed to it.
Meanwhile, purists view it as a violation of culinary tradition. A 2017 YouGov poll found that a majority of the people surveyed liked pineapple, but only about 53 per cent liked the fruit on their pizza. And 29 per cent said they hated Hawaiian pizza.
But while the fate of pineapple on pizza remains debatable, Tamburella isn’t. He has since become head chef at Don Gino, according to his LinkedIn profile.
He did try to win his job back at La Costa. But the FWC commissioner, Jennifer Hunt, dismissed Tamburella’s general protections application because it was filed too late and did not meet the criteria for exceptional circumstances.