Does pineapple belong on pizza? 4 Sacramento restaurant owners sound off on controversy
Does pineapple belong on pizza?
It’s a question that has divided foodies for decades.
The Sacramento Bee asked four Sacramento-area restaurant owners on their thoughts on the controversial fruity topping.
Here’s what they had to say.
How did pineapple end up on pizza?
Pineapple is a popular topping on pizzas along with ham, bacon and jalapeno peppers.
Where did the idea come from? Despite its name, Hawaiian pizza was not invented in Hawaii.
According to the British Broadcasting Corp.., a restaurant owner in Ontario, Canada, was the first to put pineapple on pizza in 1962.
After sampling pizza on a trip to Naples, Sam Panopoulos added the dish to his diner’s menu. He started experimenting with toppings and tried adding canned tropical fruit “just for the fun of it,” he later told the BBC.
The move kicked off a controversy that continues today.
In 2017, the president of Iceland declared that he was “fundamentally opposed” to pineapple pizza and would ban the topping if he could.
In response, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau declared himself a member of “Team Pineapple.”
“I have a pineapple. I have a pizza. And I stand behind this delicious Southwestern Ontario creation,” Trudeau wrote in a 2017 post on X.
Sacramento restaurant owners: Skip the pineapple
Vanessa Garcia, co-owner of Luigi’s Pizza Parlor in Sacramento, said pineapple is a popular topping among customers — but she doesn’t enjoy it herself.
“It is a topping that we sell a ton of,” said Garcia, who owns the restaurant with her husband, Josh, and their business partners, Mark and Dara Delgado.
“If you’re asking me personally, it’s nothing I would ever order,” Vanessa Garcia said.
When it comes to pineapple on pizza, the restaurateur added, “You’re either all in or you’re all out.”
You won’t find pineapple on pizza at Zelda’s Gourmet Pizza in midtown Sacramento.
“People call here and want chicken or white sauce, or my favorites. When they ask for pineapple and I just have to laugh,” Zelda’s owner Kerry Matthews told The Bee in April. “Pineapple does not belong on pizza.”
The Zelda’s menu has remained, for the most part, the same since it opened in 1978.
“Anything we have we had when ( Zelda Breslin) was alive,” Matthews said. “We haven’t introduced anything since then. There’s no need to.”
Fruit on pizza: Is it time to ‘move on’?
Hot Italian Pizza & Panini Bar owner Fabrizio Cercatore doesn’t serve Hawaiian pizza at his Sacramento restaurant, which specializes in traditional Italian-style fare. However, he said he’s open to the concept.
Cercatore said he tried the Hawaiian style pizza on a trip to Hawaii a few years back and enjoyed it.
“I know Italians are all horrified about the thought of pineapple on a pizza,” he said, but he believes everyone should give it a shot and experience what “the world has to offer.”
Other restaurant owners are simply tired of discussing the subject.
“Are we still asking this stupid question?” Robert Masullo, owner of Masullo Pizza in Sacramento, asked in an Instagram message to The Bee, adding that it’s time to “move on.”
“It’s been on pizza for 50 years,” he said. “People like it. Let them enjoy it.”
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