PIZZAGATE

Olympian Outraged After Pizzeria Charged to Remove Toppings

An Olympic swimmer was shocked to discover an unwanted charge at the end of her order.

Olympic swimmer Elena Di Liddo criticized a pizzeria in her Italian hometown after the owners charged her an additional €3 ($3.50) to remove pizza toppings from her order. Taking to Instagram to express her frustration, the decorated swimmer said she ordered a tricolore pizza (typically topped with pesto, mozzarella, and tomatoes) at a restaurant in the town of Bisceglie but requested that the restaurant remove the tomatoes and pesto. Upon receiving her bill, she discovered the restaurant had charged an extra €1.50 per omitted ingredient, raising the pizza’s cost from €14 to €17. “Anywhere north of Naples they will make you pay for a glass of water with coffee,” she wrote on Instagram. “Anybody born in the South is shaken by this, as it goes without saying that we shouldn’t pay for it (we’re talking about water). But to sit down in a pizza restaurant in Bisceglie and be asked to pay €1.50 for something I didn’t even eat is incredibly SAD and embarrassing. Almost illegal?” Di Liddo, 31, started her swimming career in 2009 and competed in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. She has won a slew of medals at European championships and the Mediterranean Games as well as setting Italian records in the 100-meter butterfly.