An Italian chef sacked from a Brisbane restaurant had refused to put pineapple on a pizza because it was an “insult to his culture”.

Davide Tamburella was fired from the now-closed La Costa restaurant in May, a fortnight after a meeting with management who had a string of complaints about the chef’s behaviour.

Among them were Tamburella’s refusal to provide ham and pineapple pizza for guests at a function. At the time, the chef had stated that any direction from management “need not be followed when it is offensive to his culture”.

The details came to light after the chef went to Australia’s Fair Work Commission claiming he had been unfairly dismissed.

In its ruling released on Tuesday, the commission noted that Tamburella’s refusal to put pineapple on the pizzas was because “he considers, as an Italian, that putting pineapple on a pizza is an insult to his culture”.

It also noted that it was the third time Tamburella had refused to use the fruit on pizzas in the past four years.

He had previously requested his boss to “check how important it is for Italians not to put pineapple on a pizza”.

The state of Queensland, where the restaurant is located, is considered Australia’s pineapple heartland and produces all of the country’s commercially-grown pineapples.

On the Sunshine Coast, visitors regularly stop to take photos next to The Big Pineapple, a heritage-listed 16m-tall fibreglass model of the fruit, which has become a local landmark.