Vinay Menon: Does pineapple belong on pizza? This Italian chef was fired for refusing to add it - Toronto Star

Chef Davide Tamburella declined to add the polarizing fruit, calling the request an “insult to his culture.”

Hawaiian pizza, perennially divisive.

Vinay Menon is the Star’s pop culture columnist based in Toronto. Reach him via email: vmenon@thestar.ca

There are few things more divisive than pineapple on pizza.

Chefs are mercurial. Toiling in a kitchen can turn a gentle soul into a hot head. Preparing beef wellington is emotionally draining. Clarifying the bone stock for handmade Tortellini in Brodo is a test of human patience. Then one day you are an Italian chef working in Australia and a customer makes a fruity topping request and all hell breaks loose.

That chef, Davide Tamburella, was fired earlier this year. He had been working at the La Costa Restaurant and Bar in Brisbane. For a private event, a well-heeled client requested Hawaiian pizza.

Tamburella declined, calling this an “insult to his culture.”

He launched a legal challenge. But this week, Australia’s Fair Work Commission dismissed the case. Something-something about statute of limitations and lack of exceptional circumstances.

But let’s put pineapple pizza to the side and discuss what we want from our chefs. Do we want servants or masters? Do we want to put our taste buds in their hands? Do we want them to make the dining rules that we blindly follow?

Many moons ago, my wife and I were out with friends at a new Japanese fusion joint. When the trays of hybrid sushi arrived — some looked like Lego replicas of SpongeBob SquarePants — we glanced around the table looking for the soy sauce.

Our server smiled and calmly recited a sashimi spiel, seemingly not for the first time. The chef believes soy sauce will disrupt the taste and texture of his creations. You are encouraged to experience this mouth art as conceived. We found ourselves between eater beware and the customer is always wrong.

Cutting deeper into the Mr. Tamburella story hints at more than a cultural aversion to pineapple on pizza. It’s possible he is a difficult employee prone to rage and vulgarities.

But are these not qualities we secretly want in a chef?

If Gordon Ramsay had gone into data entry, there would be no flying spatulas and temper tantrums and vanilla-infused panna cotta with pomegranate glaze.

More and more restaurants have a “no substitutions” policy. What’s that? You want to swap the cauliflower for brussels sprouts and switch the Gouda to Monterey Jack? How about this, Jack: GET THE F — K OUT!

Ask Wolfgang Puck to prepare a tenderloin well-done and he will recoil in horror as if you requested he yank down his trousers and hum “Flight of the Bumblebee.” Some famous chefs, including London’s Marco Pierre White, did not hesitate to eject diners who sent back a dish or questioned fish freshness. Every plate was perfect. If you have a problem, you are the problem.

Is it possible these chefs are freedom fighters, driven and misunderstood freaks who want to save us from our appalling tastes? Should they be judged for having an aversion to relish? Should we hold them in contempt and snatch away their livelihoods because they can’t in good conscience allow us to vandalize a bouillabaisse with pepper flakes? Should we flatly dismiss their lifelong devotion to the culinary arts because we have a real problem with cilantro?

You know why Donald Trump has never dined at a Michelin restaurant? There’s no ketchup. Bella Ramsey pours orange juice into cereal. Scott Foley smears peanut butter on scrambled eggs. Selena Gomez dips popcorn into pickle juice.

All of this would horrify the ghost of Julia Child.

I was out for dinner on Wednesday with my goddaughter. We were at R&D on Spadina. It was fantastic because it was counterintuitive. There were so many dishes we normies would never make because we can’t.

A charred Caesar salad with ikura and cashews? A Nashville-style fried chicken with Szechuan butter? When long-stemmed mushrooms are standing up in a bowl of fried rice like alien invaders levitating in your backyard, you have entered a fun dining experience.

This is why I am defending Davide Tamburella.

Brisbane should erect a statue of him made of mozzarella.

Yes, Hawaiian pizza is a foolish hill of dough to die on. It’s not as if the customer asked him to top the circular 14-inchers with Nerds Gummy Clusters. And we can slice his “insult to culture” complaint. The modern pizza emerged from Naples in the 18th century. But Hawaiian pizza? That’s a Canadian invention, circa 1960s.

I want to live in a world in which the master chefs are masterfully unhinged and unreasonable. I want them to expand my palate horizons. I want them to lose sleep over kiwi garnishes and balsamic reductions. I want them to be unpredictable lunatics who are willing to get sacked over pineapples.

I salute you, Davide Tamburella, for denouncing Hawaiian pizza.

Now tell us what you really think about Vegemite and Tim Tams.

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Vinay Menon is the Star’s pop culture columnist based in Toronto. Reach him via email: vmenon@thestar.ca