Chef sacked for refusing pineapple on pizza loses his case

In Queensland, pineapple is not a topping. It is a hill people die on.

Davide Tamburella, the Italian head chef at La Costa in Brisbane's Fortitude Valley, was sacked on 20 May after refusing to put pineapple on pizza, calling it "an insult to his culture." A Fair Work Commission ruling filed this week walked through the fight. Managing director Elliot Ingram had pulled Tamburella in over performance issues. Among them: a third refusal to follow the pineapple order, including for a function worth more than $15,000 whose host insisted on ham and pineapple.

Tamburella asked Ingram to "check how important it is for Italians not to put pineapple on a pizza." Ingram, who said the combination is not his favourite either, declined to turn away the booking. Ham and pineapple had previously sat on the children's menu. Tamburella also alleged the dismissal was tied to a workplace hand injury. Commissioner Jennifer Hunt dismissed the general protections application because it was filed too late and did not meet the bar for exceptional circumstances. The commission never ruled on whether the firing itself was fair.

La Costa closed in July when its lease expired. Tamburella now cooks at another Italian restaurant. Pineapple is not on that menu.

Culture and commerce collided over a fruit Australians take seriously enough to build a roadside monument to. The commission's answer was procedural, not culinary. The topping still won.

*Image: Pizza with pineapple. Photo: Janine / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.*

Source: The Guardian