The most expensive meals in the world vary from singular creations by master chefs who work freelance with their extravagant recipes to restaurants famous around the world for their incredible culinary experiences. Meals that cost thousands upon thousands of dollars may not be the “best” food ever made – in fact, many items on this list are designed to generate high prices before high tastes.
However, you can’t deny the eclectic luxury ingredients on display or the confidence required to put them out for sale. Continue reading to learn about the 8 most expensive meals that money can buy.
- Ultraviolet Dinner
- Urasawa Tasting Menu
- Golden Sushi
- The 24K Pizza
- Sublimotion Tasting Menu
- Louis XIII Pizza
- The Fortress Stilt Fisherman Indulgence
- Grand Velas Los Cabos Taco
Created by: Paul Pairet
Location: Shanghai, China
photo source: Michelin Guide
Paul Pairet opened Ultraviolet in 2012 as an avant-garde, single-table restaurant in Shanghai, China. Ultraviolet’s meal has since earned three Michelin stars. Its dinner menu consists of 20 courses and serves 10 patrons each night, each of whom pay $948 per meal, not including tax.
The real attraction at Ultraviolet is the sterile dining area, which is completely free of color, decoration, or décor. The room then becomes a high-minded projection room with UV lighting, wall projection, beam speakers, and dry scent machines. Each food course is paired to a unique sight and sound display to compliment the meal.
Did you know?
Most restaurants serve dishes a la carte, which even in the best restaurants can lead to mistiming. By timing the menu from start to end, Pairet created a menu where food can always be served at its most perfect moment.
Created by: Hiroyuki Urasawa
Location: Beverly Hills, California
photo source: Trip Advisor
The Urasawa restaurant began in 2003 in Beverly Hills, California. Under head chef Hiroyuki Urasawa, the restaurant has earned two Michelin stars. Its 30-course omakase tasting menu is one of the most expensive restaurant meals in the world at $1,111 per person.
Urasawa’s dining experience is famous for its low-key class, with Chef Urasawa dressed in a tied black kimono, standing in front of the ten-person cypress wood bar as he crafts the exquisite sushi. Though the menu is always changing, some of the restaurant’s specialties include seared tuna belly wrapped around monkfish liver and caviar, a black sesame dumpling stuffed with uni and gold leaf, and a wagyu beef tartare with pickled radish and caviar.
Did you know?
Despite the restaurant’s dainty specialties (another is a Japanese snapper wrapped in tuna belly served with an ice sculpture), Urasawa has faced several legal allegations in recent years. They have been accused of neglecting their employees’ wages as well as harsh treatment of their sous chefs.
Created by: Angelito Araneta Jr.
Location: Philippines
photo source: Manetti
Chef Angelito Araneta Jr. creates one of the world’s most expensive meals (and the most expensive sushi) to order in the Philippines. If you call, he’ll come to your house and prepare the roll for you for a price of $1,978 per roll.
The sushi’s decadent gemstone-inspired décor has given Chef Araneta the nickname of the “Carat Chef.” The nigiri rolls consist of pink Norwegian salmon, Palawan pearls (also known as the Pearls of the Orient Sea), foie gras, 24-karat gold leaf wrapping, and a topping of 20-carat African diamonds.
Did you know?
Norwegian salmon is well-known for its hot pink color, clean taste, and vitamin/mineral content. In the 80s, the salmon population ran into a problem with a bacterial disease (furunculosis) that farmers treated with antibiotics, complicating the health of the fish. Today, farmers use vaccines instead of antibiotics, which has helped the fish get back to its previous healthy allure.
Created by: Mark Iacono
Location: Brooklyn, New York
photo source: What the Doost?
The 24K Pizza by the Industry Kitchen in Brooklyn, New York is a meal based as much on flavor as on manipulating the ingredients to produce as much value as possible. Its ingredients run the gambit from luxurious to downright ludicrous, with toppings like foie gras, classy Stilton cheese, high-quality caviar, and sparkling edible gold leaf, from which the 24K Pizza gets its name.
Its iconic look comes from the fact that the pizza’s dough is colored with black squid ink, giving the crust the look of chewy pumpernickel bread. Tasting this insane pizza (which isn’t even the world’s most expensive) will cost you $2,000.
Did you know?
The squid ink crust may not be a random decision. While normally used to flavor egg pasta for use in briny seafood dishes, the ink in this pizza crust probably helps it congeal in flavor with the caviar on top.
Created by: Paco Roncero
Location: Ibiza, Spain
photo source: Trip Advisor
The tasting menu at Sublimotion in Ibiza, Spain is a wild meal accompanied by what it advertises as a “multisensory experience.” This is the restaurant’s take on surreal futurism, using lights, video, stark spaceship-white décor, and multimedia to turn a simple meal into a revolutionary culinary concept.
It’s food as well as art. Chef Paco Roncero, winner of two Michelin stars, charges more than any other restaurant in the world to enjoy his food, complete with a matching musical menu and visual display. This avant-garde cuisine costs over $2,000 per person, making Sublimotion the most expensive restaurant in the world.
Did you know?
The banquet at Sublimotion, which seats twelve, lasts for three hours and sends diners on a journey through time and gastronomy, from the cabarets of the past to the slick automation of the future to the bottom of the deepest sea.
Created by: Renato Viola
Location: Salerno, Italy
photo source: Lets Brighten Up
The Louis XIII Pizza is the most expensive pizza in the world, as well as nearly the priciest meal. Due to its luxurious ingredients, it must be ordered at least 72 hours in advance to give the chef Renato Viola time to prepare it and get over to your house to serve it. If you’re ever in Salerno, Italy with $12,000 burning a hole in your pocket, this could be the pizza for you.
Its luxury toppings include three colors of luxury caviar, Norwegian lobster, pink Australian salt, Cilento prawns, and genuine Mozzarella di bufala. It comes with a bottle of vintage 1995 Krug Clos du Mesnil champagne and Remy Martin Louis XIII Cognac, hence the name.
Did you know?
Mozzarella di bufala, or buffalo mozzarella, is one of the world’s most revered cheese. It is made from the milk of the Bufala Mediterranea Italiana or Italian Mediterranean Buffalo. The cheese is the pride and joy of Campania, the breadwinner of the Caserta and Salerno provinces where Viola is located.
Created by: Fortress Resort and Spa
Location: Galle, Sri Lanka
photo source: Fortress Resort and Spa
The Fortress Stilt Fisherman Indulgence dessert, an Italian cassata with Irish cream, is served by the Fortress Resort and Spa in Sri Lanka coated in edible gold leaf. It’s garnished with a compote of pomegranate and mango, drizzled with champagne sabayon. The main attraction is a chocolate fisherman statue depicting him standing in a river on a stilt, which is an antique fishing practice in the restaurant’s location of Galle, Sri Lanka.
The real kicker is an aquamarine stone placed on the chocolate counterbalance, weighing 80 carats. This luxuriously sweet meal is not only a work of art but a $14,500 investment. Despite the price, customers from Japan and all over the world have contacted the restaurant to try it.
Did you know?
Cassata is an outrageously old dessert, one of the staples of antique Italian cooking. It dates back to the 900s AD in Palermo Italy, at the time under Muslim rule. In fact, the word “cassata” is transliterated from the Arabic spoken locally at the time, specifically the word “qas’ah,” which was the specific bowl used to give the cake its shape.
Created by: Michel Mustière
Location: San Lucas, Mexico
photo source: Los Cabos
The most expensive meal is the Grand Velas Los Cabos Taco. This taco at the luxury resort in Mexico that gave it its name costs $25,000 out of the sheer decadence of the ingredients that go into it. These include a corn tortilla flaked in edible gold and an inside that features Kobe beef, langoustine, beluga caviar, brie cheese, and black truffle.
The salsa on top is no less decadent, made from dried Morita chilis, luxury anejo tequila, and the world’s most expensive coffee, called civet.
Did you know?
Civet coffee is actually made from harvesting semi-digested beans from the droppings of an Asian wild cat called a civet. That may sound disgusting, but the resulting coffee is known as the most expensive in the world. If the tacos aren’t expensive enough for you, the resort offers the option to pair it with a Ley.925 Pasión Azteca Ultra-Premium Añejo Tequila for an additional $150,000.
The Takeaway
The most expensive meals in the world combine decadent ingredients with outrageously ambitious chefs. Whether served in your kitchen by a freelance chef or as a world-class tasting menu in the world’s most beautiful restaurants, these 8 meals provide a full taste of the greatest cuisine on earth.
