Ali Chahrour

Competing in pizza making is something that Ali is very familiar with. His love for pizza has taken him to many countries around the world, and in addition to learning how to keep his competitive nerves in check, he has also made many friends and acquaintances in the industry. Both well-known and lesser-known pizza makers have stood by Ali's side over the years, sharing their experiences of pizza making and the most important detail of all – the dough!

The journey began in Örnsköldsvik and the year was 1994. Ali worked as a pizza maker in the restaurant industry, and it was there he found an outlet for his passion for cooking and baking. The job meant that he could develop the finer points of his trade, and he has always worked to become better at what he does. Ali has enhanced his skills with courses at various pizza schools and then testing his newly acquired knowledge on the guests in the restaurant. The driving force has always been his joy of cooking.

Ali competed in his first competition at the Swedish Pizza Championships in Stockholm on April 25, 2012. He proudly brought home a silver medal. But Ali wanted more, and later the same year he trained at a pizza school in Rome's Ostia district. This led to reaching the finals in the European Pizza Championship.

This was followed by an adventurous odyssey for the pizza maker from Örnsköldsvik with a sixth-place finish in the European Championships in Denmark, followed by a seventh-place finish in London and winning the gold in Sweden, which took Ali back to Italy but this time to Parma and the World Championships. This led to the European Championships in Cologne and in Hamburg, Germany and on to Las Vegas, Nevada and the World Pizza Championship in 2014 where Ali took the bronze. Back in Sweden, there was another gold medal and a trip to the Pizza Championship in Parma, followed by another trip to Padova, Italy. Ali clinched won another gold medal when he competed for Lebanon in 2015 in the World Pizza Championship, again in Parma. He also took fourth place in the competition in Porto, Portugal in 2018, and went to the finals in Porto once again in 2022.

Experience in competition is definitely not something Ali lacks, and that he is passionate about his profession and genuinely enjoys serving first-rate pizzas, that we can be sure of! You’ll have the chance to taste Ali's world-famous pizzas on April 11, 2024 at our booth at GastroNord. He'll be serving pizzas with reindeer meat, influenced from northern Sweden. Ali will also be making pizzas with zucchini, tuna, salami, mozzarella and fresh chanterelles.