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I gotta hand it to England, for they have been serving up some deliciously eccentric food stories lately. First there was the Great British Cheese Heist, wherein 22 tons of the finest artisanal English and Welsh cheddar was stolen in a scam food order placed to a London dairy, prompting chef Jamie Oliver to beseech people to be on the lookout for “lorryloads of very posh cheese.” Then there was the Great British Christmas Pie Thievery, that saw pilferers steal a van that, unbeknownst to them, was packed to the gills with 2,500 freshly-baked savory Christmas pies prepared by Michelin-star chef Tommy Banks. While Banks implored the thieves to donate the pies, the perishables had sadly, well, perished by the time police located the vehicle. And now this entry. The good news is that nothing has been stolen! Unless you count your money, after deciding to order the Hawaiian pizza at Lupa Pizza in Norfolk. See, the owners of Lupa despise pineapple on pizza so much, that they begrudgingly added it to the menu… for £100 a pie. Gentlemen, I salute your conviction.
Lupa Pizza in Norfolk is charging £100 ($122) for their Hawaiian pizza in hopes of encouraging customers “to make better choices when it comes to their pizza” after not being fans of the controversial dish.
“We’re not fans of pineapple over here and we don’t think that anyone else should be either,” Francis Woolf, owner and chief fruit consultant at the restaurant, tells PEOPLE.
“However, if people do desperately need pineapple on their pizza — then they should be prepared to pay £100 for it,” he says.
Lupa Pizza opened in June and sells the rest of its pizzas for $12–$20, per the U.K. newspaper The Times.
Their pricey Hawaiian pizza is listed on the food delivery app Deliveroo, with customers able to get 20% off on Thursdays as stated on the restaurant’s Instagram — offering some sort of silver lining for fans of the topping.
The caption for the pizza on the app reads, “Yeah, for £100 you can have it. Order the champagne too! Go on you Monster!” The dish was added to the restaurant order list following several requests, per The Times.
“It’s obviously a contentious issue,” Woolf tells PEOPLE of the pineapple-on-pizza debate. “Everyone’s very polarized on the matter, but obviously [our restaurant] is taking it quite seriously.”
And the decision to raise the price point for their pineapple pizza has clearly worked, as Woolf says “nobody has forked out £100” yet for the order.
“We think that pineapple is not a viable pizza topping and it shouldn’t be on there,” says Woolf. “Tropical fruits don’t belong on pizzas and I suppose we wanted to make our stance clear by charging £100 for it.”
You know what I say to this? It’s about damn time! I am 100% spiritually and gastrically with Lupa on their stance — pineapple as a pizza topping is an abomination!! And how will people ever learn unless they’re monetarily penalized for committing culinary acts of poor judgment? Really, Lupa is providing a public service, and I hope restaurants the world over take a page out of their cookbook. And as if these chefs hadn’t already endeared themselves to my mozzarella-loving heart, owner Francis Woolf sealed the deal by quoting his title to People Mag as “chief fruit consultant.” And People wrote it up like straight reporting, without any kind of a wink! Well done, Woolf (yet not burnt). Regretfully, unless I fall into an unexpected windfall, I will not be traveling to the UK anytime soon to give my regards to Lupa in person for standing up for what’s right. In the US, however, this happens to be National Pizza Week. Many chains are running promos, including California Pizza Kitchen. Or as my friend likes to call them, angling for a more upscale vibe, Capiki. (Get it?)
Happy eating everyone! Except for you pineapple pizza-loving heathens. Have you no shame?!
Restaurant Lists Pineapple Pizza for $122 to Stop Diners from Ordering One: 'We're Not Fans' https://t.co/8W8RryC27V
— People (@people) January 14, 2025
Photos credit: Parker Hilton on Pexels and via Instagram/Lupa Pizza, videos via Facebook/Times Radio and Norwich Evening News
