Pineapple on pizza is an insult to our great Italian cuisine – and here’s why we secretly love it | Luca Cesari

Why This Matters

Key context: <p>Of course an Italian chef would rather be sacked than make this. Defending our food against such blasphemy makes us feel like better people</p><ul><li><p>Luca Cesari is a food historian and author of The History of Pizza</p></li></ul><p>You may have smiled at the news a few days ago: the Italian chef Davide Tamburella <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/food/2026/nov/05/italian-chef-sacked-refusing-pineapple-on-pizza-australia-fair-work">was sacked by a Brisbane restaurant</a> after refusing to put pineapple on a pizza. Never mind that Queensland grows almost all of Australia’s pineapples. Tamburella would not give way to his customers or his boss, insisting that the combination was an insult to Italian culture.</p><p>Strange as it may sound, he is not the first. In 2017, Maurizio Landi, a chef from Bologna, was sacked by a bistro near Lyon <a href="https://www.lastampa.it/opinioni/editoriali/2017/07/28/news/e-parigi-licenzia-anche-il-nostro-chef-1.34458401/">after resisting pressure</a> to cook his pasta for longer and to serve spaghetti bolognese, a dish that does not exist in his home town. For anyone who doesn’t know, Bologna is the only city in the world where ragù is eaten solely with tagliatelle, and putting it on spaghetti borders on an outrage.</p><p>Luca Cesari is a food historian and the author of <a href="https://guardianbookshop.com/the-history-of-pizza-9781509566648/">The History of Pizza</a></p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/nov/07/pineapple-pizza-italian-food-insult-chef-sacked">Continue reading...</a> This development from The Guardian highlights ongoing changes in the sector.