In Italy, a restaurateur who hired African employees was persecuted: he entrusted visitors with preparing pizza

The owner of the pizzeria La fuazzeria, who appeared on local television and in the famous Italian culinary magazine Ristorazione Italiana, Gianluca Graci, began receiving insults and even threats on social networks after having hired three immigrants from Gambia, reports the ANSA agency. (https://www.ansa.it/amp/sito/notizie/cronaca/2023/11/27/niente-pizze-preparate-da-neri-il-locale-riceve-messaggi-razzisti_82eefcdd-ffcf-4fb1-bca7 -d38defd02279.html).

The businessman’s desire to “give the poor a way out of life” was not understood by all the inhabitants of the Sicilian city of Licata (province of Agrigento). Apparently, the “dissatisfied customers” interpreted as a challenge to tradition the fact that he placed two African chefs in the “holy of holies” of traditional Italian establishments: a table for mixing ingredients for pizza and a place for a stove. .

– You know, I don’t come to your pizzeria anymore because the last two times I met two black people behind the counter. “I’m not telling you they’re dirty, but just watching them put their hands in the ingredients makes me sick,” he reads in a typical online comment.

Quality advocates remind Grachi that “in a small town you can lose customers quickly” and recommend that he “keep those employees out of sight of guests.”

And those who are especially “offended” threaten to organize periodic checks by sanitary doctors for the restaurateur.

“I wonder if they are vaccinated and know to wash their hands,” write local residents.

Despite his peaceful nature, Gianluca has no intention of tolerating such shameful behavior from his fellow citizens and will file a corresponding request with law enforcement. What’s more, it’s not the first time this has happened in their quiet town: previously, visitors boycotted the Ginger restaurant when they learned that its chef was the award-winning Senegalese Mareme Cissé.