Gino Sorbillo is among a growing number of Italian chefs sourcing inspiration from abroad—and being accused of pandering to American tourists in the process.
It ’s no secret that Italian food traditions are among the most particular — and rigid — in the mankind . Beyond gastronomy , you ’ll retrieve rules about anything touching quality of sprightliness , let in the good time to go to the beach , taking into account sun stance and the post - lunch forty winks . My Italian - born grandfather , Luigi , used to say , “ Only mad dogs and Englishman go swim in the afternoon . ” His father , my great - grandfather , believe that drinking a deoxyephedrine of orange juice and aglass of milkcould curdle the liquids in your tum , possibly killing you .
As I grew old and live in Italy myself , I learned even more cultural orthodoxy , particularly regarding solid food and drink : Cheese can not go onseafood dishes . Only tourists drink cappuccino coffee after 11 am . If your drink is too cold , you ’ll get disturbed .
And they ’re even more serious when it comes to pizza . In March of last yr , Italian minister of agriculture and solid food sovereignty Francesco Lollobrigida ( sidekick - in - police force to the state ’s far - right premier minister Georgia Meloni)announcedthat Italy would lobby UNESCO to declareItalian cuisinea piece of intangible ethnical inheritance . “ We are very rigorous when it come to food , ” a friend exist in Puglia told me . “ But I do n’t see it as a negative thing . It ’s why in Italy you’re able to find the best solid food in the world . ”
In Italy, pineapple pizza is not amore.|Design by Maitane Romagosa for Thrillist
Yet despite this rigidness — or , maybe , because of it — this past December , one of Italy ’s most far-famed pizzaioli , orpizza maker , did the unthinkable . Gino Sorbilloput pineapple on a pizza . His margherita bunko game l’ananas was a playful ( and PR - savvy ) newfangled increase to his bill of fare atPizzeria Sorbillo , a historical pizzeria on Via dei Tribunali in Naples . While perhaps no name is as synonymous with Neapolitan pizza custom as Sorbillo , a respected pizza - making sept that goes back several generation , the restauranteur is part of a wave of globally minded , very on-line Italian chefsembracing invention — or , as some might call it , sacrilege . One of Sorbillo ’s followerscommented(translation mine ) , “ It ’s fine in the US and England , but in Naples , let ’s leave custom alone . ” Another , “ Noooo , how are we run to criticize Americans now ? ”
The € 7 white pie is topped with three types of cheese — smoked provola and two regional varieties of smoked cacioricotta high mallow — and finished with twice - cook , caramelized pineapple . Sorbillotold CNNthat he produce the Proto-Indo European , which activate a national medium fury , to “ combat food prejudice . ” And there ’s no “ prejudice ” in Italy as judge as the one against pineapple on pizza .
“ I ’ve note in the last few years that lots of people were reprobate ingredient or room of preparing food for thought strictly because in the past , most masses did n’t hump them , ” he continued . “ So I wanted to put these gainsay ingredients — that are treat like they ’re poison — onto a Neapolitan pizza pie , create them tasty . ” Some Italian media have characterized the act as a cynical publicity stunt to pull in tourists , others a betrayal of custom . While Sorbillo is not the first pizzaiolo to experiment with a new - waveHawaiian pie — Rome ’s Gabriele Bonci did in 2011 whenAnthony Bourdain claver his shop class , and several avant - garde pizza makers from Naples to Milan have since — the charge up reception to this particular margherita con l’ananas might stand for an modulation point in Italian food for thought civilisation as a new brand of gastronationalism addition steam .
Italian chef Gino Sorbillo has done the unthinkable: Put pineapple on pizza.|Gino Sorbillo Artista Pizza Napoletana
In Italy , the culinary rules are loosen , and boundary - pushing chef who ’ve spent significant time afield ( and online ) are leading the charge . In the past several years , Sorbillo has helped grow the family line of work into an international one , opening 21 outlets around the public , let in in Miami andNew York . And Bonci , the chef who served pineapple pizza toBourdainin 2011,has build up a global imperium himself . Rome - based solid food writer Andrea Martina di Lena maintains that Italy is n’t inherently react to experiment , citing chef Arcangelo Dandini famously couple children’sPlasmon cookies with foie gras , and 25 - year - oldMasterChefalum Valerio Braschi servinglasagna out of a toothpaste tube — though that caused some hubbub as well because lasagna , like pizza , is considered sacred . “ Italians think of pizza pie — but also alimentary paste and ice cream — as Italian food , ” she tell me . “ Perhaps we blank out that if we eat a margherita it is because the love apple was imported from America , as were potatoes and so much more . ”
Alberto Ragoni , a chef working between Rome and Chianti who has spend significant time cookery abroad , feels that the bulk , but certainly not all , Italian Captain James Cook and consumers are still very attached to cultural dogma . “We have so much tradition rooted in our DNA , ” he order . “ Milanis more subject about unexampled things , because it is a metropolis with a more late history . It ’s mostly made up of immigrants from after the war . Some chefs are rent their experiences from overseas and you’re able to tell where they ’ve cooked — like France , Copenhagen , andSpain . ”
Maybe pineapple on pizza pie remains so politically institutionalize because it correspond reckless American tinkering with precious Italian gastronomy . However , Italian chef are progressively tinkering with the tinkering ; Sorbillo , who was refer anambassador for gastronomy tourismin 2020 , infuses unequivocal Italianness back into anAmerican take on an Italian dish .
Sorbillo isn’t the only Italian chef that’s dared to toy with tradition.|Arcangelo Vino e Cucina
And yet , such experimentation can elicit allegation of holidaymaker pandering . In the Italian web site Cookist , columnist Leonardo Cicarellawrote of the scandal , “ In [ Naples ’s ] historic center , there are also other pizzerias that offer something similar ; neighborhood spots are taking reward of the wave of tourism and growing need for this case of mathematical product from Australian and Canadian tourists in particular . ”
Sorbillo , who has over 388,000 followers onInstagramand has served as a judge on several internationally broadcasted season ofMasterChef , has post dozens of videos of the pineapple pizza pie . In February , he found a triiodothyronine - shirt depicting a toon pineapple and pizza slash holding hands with the text “ Now It ’s Love by Gino Sorbillo . ”
“ I consider that there is no dirt in put pineapple on pizza , but that exploit this as marketing is what makes Italians ‘ raging , ’ ” Di Lena told me . “ If we ’re still talking about it , however , Sorbillo deliver the goods . ”
Before the media frenzy , Sorbillo had quietly added thepizzato his computer menu . He denies accusations that it was just for holidaymaker : Local Neapolitans were ordering it and delight it because he announced it to the humankind . As Bonci excellently tell Bourdain , “ Pineapple , ham , and onion , is wonderful , all right ? ”
