Fired for refusing to put pineapple on pizza. It is the story of Davide Tamburella, an Italian chef who worked in a restaurant in Brisbane, Australia, and who took his former employer to the Australian Labor Disputes Commission, claiming that he had been sent away unfairly. At the center of the dispute is one of the most discussed combinations of international cuisine: Hawaiian pizza, with ham and pineapple. A preparation that the chef considered an offense to Italian gastronomic culture.
Tamburella was working at La Costa restaurant in Queensland when management asked him to prepare ham and pineapple pizzas for guests at an event. The cook had refused, arguing that orders from superiors should not necessarily be followed when they were offensive to one’s culture.
It wasn’t the first time. As emerges from the decision of the Fair Work Commission, the Australian body that deals with labor disputes, the chef had already refused to use pineapple on pizza on two other occasions in the previous four years. In the past he had even invited his employer to inquire about the importance that Italians attach to the ban, although unwritten, on putting pineapple on pizza.
Queensland is considered the Australian homeland of the pineapple: all national commercial production of the fruit is grown in the state. On the Sunshine Coast there is even a giant 16 meter high fiberglass sculpture, called The Big Pineapple, which has become a tourist attraction. But the refusal to prepare Hawaiian pizza would not have been the only reason for the dismissal. The general manager of the restaurant, Elliot Ingram, explained to the Daily Mail that there was much more behind the story than a simple topping on the pizza and according to what was reconstructed by the BBC through the commission documents, the restaurant management had also complained to Tamburella about the vulgar language used in the workplace, the methods of communication with colleagues and some episodes of growing frustration.
The restaurant, in the meantime, has closed its doors. Tamburella – who had his request rejected by the Fair Work Commission for procedural reasons – is instead employed in another restaurant in Brisbane: here pineapple does not appear among the ingredients offered.