Advertisement

When fast food turns posh

Burgers, pizzas and hot dogs are classic fast food, to be grabbed when you're on-the-go. And they're also filling and cheap — well, mostly. Would you pay £2,000 for a pizza? Check these out.

Selfridges £85 wagyu beef sandwich

Photo © Rex
In 2006, Selfridges launched a sandwich with a price tag of £85. It was developed by their executive chef Scott MacDonald, who insisted at the time that it wasn't a gimmick. He told the Guardian at the time of the launch: "I was invited to devise the best sandwich I could invent, money no object."

The sandwich contained foie gras, black truffles, unpasteurised Brie, red pepper and mustard confit, English plum tomatoes and rare wagyu beef from Japan, all squeezed between slices of sourdough bread.

The Guardian's verdict: "It tasted rich as in you wouldn't want any dinner after eating a whole one, and rich as in just as well because you couldn't afford dinner."

[Related feature: The world's most extreme foods]

The £2,150 lobster pizza

Glasgow chef Domenico Crolla was asked to create an expensive-style pizza that would be auctioned off in aid of the Fred Hallows Appeal, a charity helping to reduce curable blindness in developing countries.

He realised, that by coincidence, the auction date was the same as the premiere for the James Bond movie Casino Royale, in November 2006. "I researched what the spy had to eat in his films," Domenico told us, "and incorporated most of them on a pizza in some way".

The pizza was topped with edible gold leaf, lobster marinated in cognac, caviar soaked in champagne, Scottish salmon and venison. It was the first time, Domenico tells us, that gold leaf had been used on "the humble dish from Naples." According to the BBC, the pizza was purchased by an Italian lawyer.

The £94 hot dog

Photo © Rex

Mike Brown, owner of California's Capitol City Dawg restaurant decided to come up with a super-gourmet version of a hot dog in May 2012. It contained an 18-inch beef frankfurter, moose cheese, white truffle butter, French wholegrain mustard and New Hampshire maple syrup-marinated bacon, all held together by a specially made focaccia roll.
Proceeds from sales of the hot dogs — at $145 each - go towards the Shriners Hospital for Children in Northern California. And for those who dismiss the hot dog as just a stunt, Mike Brown said in a statement, "No tricks or foolish toppings here, just superior quality and an extraordinary combination of flavours."

The £650 caviar-topped frittata

Photo © Rex

How much would you pay for a restaurant frittata? Seven pounds? Ten? Well Norma's in New York are frying up this eggy treat for $1,000 (about £650). Named 'The Zillion Dollar Frittata', its ingredients include lobster, eggs, cream and chives. The finished frittata is then topped with caviar.

Marisa Zafran, from Parker Meridien, who own the restaurant, told the Daily Mail that around 12 people order the frittata each year. "We actually don't make much money on it, we sell it at about cost," she said.

The £2,000 seafood curry

Photo © Rex

Fish curries are often enjoyed around the world because they are cheap. But next time you nip out to your local takeaway for a prawn biryani, think of this. London's Bombay Brasserie has created a curry with ingredients including crab, turbot, lobster, Beluga caviar, sea snails, white truffle and edible gold.

Jenna Sloan, writing for The Sun, was the first to taste the curry in 2011. "The dish is delicious," she said. "The crab, turbot and lobster have an eye-watering chilli kick and the gold tastes… expensive."

Are there any foods that can't be made more glamorous by a sprinkling of edible gold and white truffle shavings? Would you pay out for one of these meals?