{"id":954632,"date":"2026-11-06T10:54:13","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T10:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/954632\/"},"modified":"2026-11-06T10:54:13","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T10:54:13","slug":"multitude-of-factors-behind-firing-of-chef-who-refused-pineapple-on-pizza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/954632\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Multitude of factors’ behind firing of chef who refused pineapple on pizza"},"content":{"rendered":"

The owner of a Brisbane restaurant that fired a chef who refused to put pineapple on a pizza says it was not the “one defining factor” behind the decision.<\/p>\n

Italian chef Davide Tamburella made headlines after he lodged an unfair dismissal claim, alleging it was offensive to his culture to put pineapple on a pizza.<\/p>\n

The claim was knocked back by the Fair Work Commission this week.<\/p>\n

Mr Tamburella was fired from the now-closed La Costa restaurant in Fortitude Valley in May, following a meeting with management.<\/p>\n

La Costa owner Elliot Ingram said on social media that there were a “multitude of different factors” that went into the decision to fire Mr Tamburella.<\/p>\n

\"Hawaiian<\/p>\n

Hawaiian pizza is a popular option in Australia.\u00a0 (Flickr: Patrick Talbert<\/a>)<\/p>\n

“It did contribute to the overall decision of termination, based on a customer’s request that we thought was reasonable, but it was more about the other things in the background that were happening.”<\/p>\n

In its ruling released this week, the commission noted it was the third time in four years that Mr Tamburella had refused the request.<\/p>\n

It also noted that reasons for his dismissal included his “acknowledged used of inappropriate language” and “ongoing concerns regarding leadership behaviour, professionalism”.<\/p>\n

Mr Ingram said the request was from a customer who was celebrating their birthday at the restaurant.<\/p>\n

“Being in Australia, having pineapple on pizza is very common,” he said.<\/p>\n

“With Italians they’re very traditional when it comes to their food, especially pizza.<\/p>\n

“But at the end of the day we’re not in Italy, we’re in Australia.”<\/p>\n

The commission also heard Mr Tamburella had injured his hand and fractured two bones in his right hand after he struck a metal handrail while at work.<\/p>\n

The commission found Mr Tamburella had submitted his application more than 21 days after being fired and did not find exceptional circumstances allowing for an extension of time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The owner of a Brisbane restaurant that fired a chef who refused to put pineapple on a pizza…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":954633,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[41841,522070,522071,20756,93271,43,522069,44,522068,99720,94,701,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-954632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-chef","tag-davide-tamburella","tag-elliot-ingram","tag-fair-work-commission","tag-fired","tag-headlines","tag-la-costa","tag-news","tag-pineapple","tag-pizza","tag-qld","tag-queensland","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=954632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/954633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=954632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=954632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=954632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}