Restaurant charges US$120 to add pineapple on pizza

A picture of pineapple on a pizza. (Pexels)

There are few moments as controversial in food history as the decision by a Canadian chef in the 1960s to put tinned pineapple on top of a ham pizza.

When Sam Panapoulos created what he and his brother-slash-partner-in-crime dubbed Hawaiian pizza, it was a breach of Italian culinary protocol that would echo down through the ages.

Some six decades later, the question of whether pineapple belongs on pizza is a topic that divides nations, communities and even families.

Now a pizzeria in Norwich, England, has nailed its colors to the mast by introducing pineapple to its online delivery menu — but at the princely sum of £100 (around US$122).

Surprisingly, this isn’t the highest price charged for pineapple in the past year — a $395.99 red-hued variant hit the California market last May — but it’s considerably higher than the dollar that a can of tinned pineapple would typically cost in a UK superstore.

“Yeah, for £100 you can have it. Order the champagne too! Go on you Monster!,” jeers the new menu listing for Hawaiian on Lupa Pizza’s account on UK food delivery app Deliveroo.

It sits alongside uncontroversial classics such as Napoli, Meatball and Pepperoni, all retailing for $17 or less.

‘No’ to pineapple

“I say ‘no’ to pineapple,” Lupa’s head chef Quin Jianoran tells CNN Travel by phone.

The Panapoulous brothers mixed “Chinese sweet and sour flavors with a traditional Italian product,” he explains. “it’s very controversial, because people literally love it and people hate it. We’re just taking a stance.”

There have been no orders as yet for the £100 pizza, Lupa’s head chef Quin Jianoran confirmed to CNN Travel, although the online reaction has “taken a huge turn. It’s unbelievable, to be honest.”

The restaurant has promised to put pineapple on its monthly special board if the results of a poll in the Norwich Evening News, a local newspaper, go in the fruit’s favor.

The yellow underdog is currently charging ahead with a full 62% of the vote on whether pineapple belongs on pizza, although whether the £100 price tag will translate to the dish offered at the brick-and-mortar restaurant has yet to be decided.

“My views might change!” laughs Jianoran. “It could be £200, it could be £2, who knows.”

While pineapple has traditionally been shunned by Italian pizza-makers, a year ago Napoli pizza maestro Gino Sorbillo introduced a divisive ananas pizza to his menu in Via dei Tribunali, the best-known pizza street in Naples, the world capital of pizza. His intention, he said, was to “combat food prejudice.”

The debate over pineapple pizza has at times become so heated it almost triggered a political crisis. In 2017, the then Icelandic president, Guðni Th. Jóhannesson, had to clarify that he would not be banning pineapple pizza in his country — and that he did not even have the power to legislate such a move — after his disdain for the combo went viral.

While Jianoran prefers traditional toppings, his “favorite style of pizza is a New York-style pizza, there’s not really any limits to what they put on theirs.”

Indeed, a New York pizzeria was named the best in the world in 2024. Una Pizza Napoletana, on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, topped the Italy-based 50 Top Pizza Awards last September.

The-CNN-Wire

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