UK Restaurant Charges Rs. 10,000 for Pineapple Pizza, Here’s Why

Long known to split opinion among food lovers, the topic of pineapple on pizza has stirred debate on whether the tropical fruit deserves a spot on the savory dish. Some can’t get enough of the blend of sweet and savory, but others find it intolerable. Lupa Pizza in Norwich, UK, just added fuel to the fire, charging an eye-watering £100 (around Rs. 10,500) for a Hawaiian pizza—it’s a clear statement against the topping. Their menu, in jest reads, “Yeah, for £100 you can have it. Order the champagne too! Go on you Monster!”

Francis Woolf, the restaurant’s co-owner, strongly opposes pineapple on pizza. Speaking to The Guardian, he said, “I absolutely loathe pineapple on a pizza.” Head chef Quin Jianoran echoed this sentiment, humorously adding, “I love a pina colada, but pineapple on pizza? Never. I’d rather put a bloody strawberry on one than that tropical menace.”

This polarizing topping has a storied history; the first iteration, made by Sam Panopoulos topping ham pizza with tinned pineapple in the 1960s and naming it after the brand he used, proved so divisive, but loyal fans clung to Hawaiian pizza. Surprisingly, the sky-high pricing of Lupa has yet to curb interest. So far, no one has ordered the £100 pizza, but Jianoran revealed to CNN that online buzz has been incredible: “It’s unbelievable, to be honest.

In a light-hearted turn of events, the restaurant has agreed to feature pineapple as a topping in their monthly special if a local poll conducted by Norwich Evening News favors it. With pineapple currently leading at 62%, Jianoran remarked, “My views might change! It could be £200, it could be £2, who knows.”

The premium price is not unknown. In 2024, a red-colored pineapple version was sold in California for $395.99 or Rs. 34,280, a staggering multi-fold increase over the price of regular pineapple canned fruit. Some old-style Italian pizza makers are getting down to earth. Last year, Naples’s pizza master Gino Sorbillo started selling pineapple on his menu in Via dei Tribunali, saying he wanted to “fight food snobbery.”

The debate even reached political heights. In 2017, Iceland’s President Guoni Th. Johannesson clarified he was not banning pineapple pizza after jokingly opposing the combination—a remark that quickly went viral. Though Lupa added fuel to this debate, a polarizing topping continues to dominate the headlines in many parts of the world.