Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Membership today.
Already a member?
Log in
An Italian chef who was sacked from a restaurant in Australia allegedly for refusing to put pineapple on pizzas because he considered it an insult to his culture has lost his bid to challenge his dismissal.
Davide Tamburella was sacked from the La Costa restaurant in Brisbane‘s Fortitude Valley on 20 May, a fortnight after a meeting with the management to discuss concerns about his performance.
One of the issues raised was his refusal to prepare ham and pineapple pizzas for guests attending a function.
Mr Tamburella said instructions from his employers “need not be followed when it is offensive to his culture”.
According to a ruling by Australia’s Fair Work Commission, released on Tuesday, Mr Tamburella acknowledged that this was the third time in four years he had refused to follow an instruction to put pineapple on pizza.
He had instead asked his employer, Elliot Ingram, to “check how important it is for Italians not to put pineapple on a pizza”.
Representative: Hawaiian with pineapple and chicken (Getty/iStock)
The dispute came to light after Mr Tamburella lodged an application with the commission alleging that his dismissal breached Australia’s Fair Work Act.
The commission heard that the disagreement over pineapple came to a head when a customer organising a large function, with a bill exceeding A$15,000 (£7,800), requested ham and pineapple pizzas.
“We had a large function come in, and they were spending in excess of $15,000, and the guy paying for the whole thing says: ‘Look, I need to get some ham and pineapple pizza,’” Mr Ingram said.
Although Mr Ingram said pineapple was not his preferred pizza topping, he argued that accommodating customers was part of running a restaurant.
“Do I go and buy a ham and pineapple pizza? It’s probably not my absolute favourite,” he said, The Guardian reported.
“But I’m not going to turn my nose up at it, that’s for sure. And, look, we have had ham and pineapple pizza on the kid’s menu previously.”
Mr Ingram, who told the commission he had spent 17 years in hospitality and more than a decade running restaurants, said the experience had taught him to “pick your battles”.
However, refusing the instruction was not the only concern raised about Mr Tamburella’s conduct.
Management also cited his alleged use of inappropriate language, communication style, and escalation of frustration during service.
The ruling also detailed an incident on 24 April in which Mr Tamburella fractured bones in his right hand after striking a metal handrail at work.
Mr Tamburella alleged that his dismissal was partly motivated by the workplace injury and claimed that the termination contravened the Fair Work Act.
However, commissioner Jennifer Hunt dismissed his application because it had been filed outside the prescribed time limit and did not qualify for an exception on the grounds of exceptional circumstances.
The commission’s decision did not establish whether the allegations surrounding the reasons for his dismissal were justified.
The dismissal also disrupted Mr Tamburella’s plans to secure permanent residency in Australia.
He had been more than three years into the employer-sponsored subclass 186 visa process, which provides a pathway to permanent residency for eligible skilled workers.
Mr Ingram told the commission that he had waited as long as legally possible before notifying the authorities that he was no longer employing Mr Tamburella, hoping the chef’s visa application would be approved before he was required to withdraw his sponsorship.
The application was not approved within that period, meaning Mr Tamburella would have to restart the process.
The restaurant’s managing director, Mr Ingram, told the Daily Mail that there was “more to this story than a pizza topping”.
The Independent has approached Mr Tamburella for comment.
La Costa subsequently closed in July after its lease expired. Mr Ingram attributed the closure to the high cost of operating in Fortitude Valley.
Queensland, where the restaurant was based, is one of Australia’s principal pineapple-growing regions. The state government lists the Sunshine Coast, Wide Bay, Yeppoon, coastal North Queensland and the Atherton Tablelands among the areas where the fruit is cultivated.
The state is also home to the Big Pineapple, a 16-metre-tall fibreglass landmark in Woombye on the Sunshine Coast. The heritage-listed structure has become a tourist attraction.
