Country with the world's weirdest pizza shocked Italians say 'shouldn't be allowed'

"That is f***ing wild," remarks Gerardo, one half of the popular foodblogging duo Bite Twice when I explained to him what's in a Flygande Jacob pizza.

Chicken and bananas form the base, which is topped with whipped cream and Heinz chili sauce. The concoction is garnished with bacon and peanuts. It is a pizza of such violent self-belief that it renders the British crowd-splitting ham and pineapple the food equivalent of Adele.

Having been told of the madness that is Swedish pizza, I decided to try it out for myself during a recent trip to Stockholm. A Swedish friend was on hand to steer me away from the kind of upmarket restaurant that would provide an authentic Neopolitan bake to the kind of back-alley joint that serves up after-hours sustenance to a people more typically associated with being at the cutting edge of taste.

The roots of the Swedish pizza are found in the mid-20th century when large numbers of Italians arrived in the country, bringing some of their culinary heritage with them. For reasons that have been lost to time, the Swedes decided to start experimenting with the toppings in a way that never quite occurred to their European neighbours.

One of the most famous concoctions is the kebab pizza, which has the contents of a doner (salad and all) swirled onto the top of a cheese and tomato base. The tutti frutti is another iconic dish, fusing tomato sauce, cheese, garlic sauce, curry spice, banana, pineapple, peanuts and mandarin orange. Days before my trip to take on the final boss of the form, I had enjoyed a tutti frutti in a village way up north, polishing off my final segment-encrusted slice before wandering outside to be dazzled by a remarkable display of the Northern Lights.

In Stockholm clear skies were replaced with a heavy overcast that burst into a blizzard as I entered Birkastans Pizzeria. A handful of Swedes were already inside, working their way through an afternoon pizza that comfortably broke the 18" diameter barrier.

Some people say that the more options on a menu, the worse the restaurant. Given Bikastans has 89 pizzas to choose from, this is clearly not true. Had I not been on a specific mission, a long time would've been spent choosing between 63. TEX MEX (salami, crab sticks, spice mix, jalapeno, sheep cheese, taco sauce), 56. SANTA MARIA (beef fillet, jalapeno, fresh mushrooms, onion, bearnaise sauce) and 33. QUATTRO STAGIONE (ham, shrimp, mussels, mushrooms, olives, artichoke).

Instead, I went for the flygande Jacob, with the chicken and bacon held for ethical reasons.

Does it work? Absolute.

Call me a heathen or an affront to Italian food culture if you must, but there is a subtlety in the way the banana plays off against the Heinz chili sauce, the peanuts providing a welcome crunch against a bed of stringy cheese. I wolfed down my mammoth dish, stopping only to load my plate up with my pizza salad—another Swedish staple consisting mostly of cabbage and imported from Yugoslavia in the 1970s.

Given I am a travel writer and not a food critic, I decided to defer judgment to a professional.

Since lockdown Gerardo has been charming an increasingly large online following with his reviews of pizza across London. Although he speaks in a broad South London accent, both his parents are Italian and he grew up speaking the language as part of Lewisham's 'Little Italy'.

"They say 'when you're on a diet, you have Swedish pizza'," Gerardo joked. "It is wild, putting salad on a pizza. It's a bit more kebaby."

While he may have the Mediterranean blood of a people known for their staunch defense of pizza and pasta cooked exactly as it should be, Gerardo argues there is a time and a place for all pizza.

"I used to think pineapple on pizza was disgusting, but then I began to think it isn't that bad. We did try one kebab pizza, It was okay, it's like an extra crunch on top of it. I won't hate on anyone going to get it. Is it a concept that can kick off in the UK? No. I think people come round to things quite slowly here."

The Flying Jacob however, is "f***** wild". "You should try everything once. If we went out for a pizza and you asked for that, I might blush a little bit," Gerardo concedes. "Whipping cream? No. it shouldn't be allowed."