Anthony Smart explores the background to ten of the world’s most expensive food and drink products
Whilst Aldo Gucci once said that “quality is remembered long after price is forgotten,” some of the most expensive food and drinks products out there are very, very expensive with good reason.
Topping the list of steeply priced foods and drinks are items that are made with scarcely available ingredients or produced in peculiar ways that might be labour or time intense, or indeed both.
If you can stomach the outlay involved, here are ten of the most expensive food and drink products you might wish to add to your shopping list:
Almas caviar (as much as £40,000 per kilogram)
The world’s highest value caviar is known as Almas and harvested from albino beluga sturgeon eggs taken from the South Caspian Sea. It is so highly priced mainly because it is considered the “rarest of the rare” caviars and the process of harvesting it is laborious.
Alba white truffle (approximately £8,800 per kilogram)
Another pricey treasure is the Alba white truffle, which originates from Piedmont in Italy. Valued for the depth of flavour it provides; it is in high demand, but very difficult to grow due to its unique climate and soil needs.
Matsutake mushrooms (approximately £1,760 per kilogram)
The Japanese value matsutake mushrooms (pine mushrooms) for their distinctive aroma and flavour. This especially hard-to-find fungus, which can go for £800 a pound (around £1,760 a kilo), are wild foraged, not farmed, and require very particular growth conditions. In 2020, they were added to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list of threatened species for the first time.
Kobe beef (approximately £352 per kilogram)
Kobe beef is raised in Hyōgo prefecture in Japan, using a particular breed of Wagyu cattle. This beef can be sold for £160 per pound (around £352 per kilogram) because of its fat marbling and tenderness, according to Lottoland’s guide. One factor that adds to its high price is the strict regulation of its production and its limited supply.
Elvish honey is also known as ‘Fairy Honey’ and considered “the densest, highest and most magical honey harvested in the north-east Black Sea. It is cultivated “high in the untouched mountains of Arhavi and produced by a colony of Caucasian wild bees that pollinate from medicinal, endemic herbs and plants.”Almas caviar is lauded as “boasting the rich buttery notes of fresh beluga, enhanced by a natural aroma that is entirely its own.” The albino beluga sturgeon must reach the age of 100 years before its eggs can finally be harvested and the result is said to be a “caviar of breathtaking beauty, with a brilliant ethereal white hue that sparkles like diamonds.”Matsutake mushrooms are prized in Japanese cuisine for their distinct, spicy aroma. Whilst abundant in the country until the 1940s, the annual harvest of matsutake in Japan itself is now less than 1,000 tonnes per year – which has resulted in their price rocketing.Saffron is a spice derived from the flower of crocus sativus. It is used as a seasoning and colouring agent in food and is the world’s costliest spice by weight.
Saffron (approximately £8,800 per kilogram)
Often referred to as ‘red gold,’ saffron is the most expensive spice in the world, going for roughly £4,000 a pound (£8,800 a kilogram). It has a premium price because harvesting saffron is very labour-intensive, needing thousands of crocus flowers for a small number of saffron threads.
Bluefin tuna sushi (as much as £250,000 per fish)
At the top end of sushi cuisine, particularly in Japan, is bluefin tuna. This beautiful fish can touch six feet in length and weigh hundreds of pounds. With individual fish going for upwards of £250,000 at auction, the prices have rocketed because of overfishing and endangered species status. Seafood lovers will appreciate the deep flavour and texture.
Kopi luwak coffee (approximately £1,100 per kilogram)
Kopi luwak is the priciest coffee in the world, costing approximately £500 per pound (£1,100 per kilogram). Made from coffee beans that are consumed and then excreted by civets, this speciality coffee is fermented in the digestive system of these animals, which adds to its flavour.
Ibérico ham (between £400 to £5,500 per leg)
Ibérico ham is Spanish cured ham made from free-range Ibérico pigs fed on acorns during the ‘montanero’ period (October to February). Prices can range from £400 to more than £5,500 depending on grade and quality and the process of ageing can take a number of years. Its umami taste is rich and is in demand for gourmet goods.
Elvish honey (around £4,500 per kilogram)
This ‘elixir’ is harvested under challenging conditions in Turkey and can reach a price of around £4,500 per kilogram. The steep cost is largely due to the specialised environment in which this ‘precious nectar’ is produced on the north-east Black Sea and the laborious process of harvesting it; honey hunters need to work extremely hard to access the hives and walk for eight hours to reach the ‘safeguard tree’ once per year.
Densuke watermelon (upto £5,000 each)
The Densuke watermelon, prized for its unique black skin, is only cultivated on Hokkaido Island in Japan. As there are only about 10,000 harvested each year, these watermelons can fetch as much as £5,000 each at auction.
All-round plonker Phillip Schofield’s wine range condemned as “only fit for the bin” and “no more palatable than fizzy Ribena”
Known for his extremely short fuse and once described by David Dimbleby as “cretinous,” Phillip Schofield recently launched a wine range in Waitrose and on Amazon. Unsurprisingly, it’s been a total flop and was quite deservedly condemned at the weekend in The Sun as “overpriced” and “bitter.”
Priced between £19.99 and £24.99 for 2.25-litre boxes, Schofield’s was slammed by one punter as “only fit for the bin” on Waitrose’s website. They added: “The wine [was] effervescing within the bag. No more palatable than fizzy Ribena” whilst another suggested: “I don’t have anything positive to say about the flavour at all. Not pleasant drinking. We failed to finish the box.”
Prior to launching the range in April, Schofield quite pompously bragged to The Drinks Business:
“When I agreed to this partnership, I had certain conditions; I wanted to be part of the tasting team… I wanted it to be good value. The result is something I felt I could really invest in.”
Schofield – whose ‘coming out’ and alleged connections to a young man named Matthew McGreevy attracted much media attention earlier this year – unsurprisingly failed to respond to a request from The Steeple Times for comment; he was probably instead too busy nursing a hangover headache from drinking his equivalent of Sir Cliff Richard’s equally vile plonk.
Pictured top: All-round plonker Phillip Schofield on a night out with his one-time ‘friend’ Matt McGreevy; Phillip Schofield’s bag-in-box wines.
Sir Cliff Richard’s associations with wines, just like Phillip Schofield’s, have not always proved fruitful. In 2006, appearing on Gordon Ramsay’s ‘The F-Word,’ the crappy crooner had a meltdown during a blind tasting. After sipping one unnamed offering, Sir Cliff announced: “That’s rubbish. I wouldn’t pay for that. It’s tainted, it’s insipid, it tastes like vinaigrette. I’d never buy that.” Ramsay, responded by remarking: “Cliff, that’s your wine”. The singer is said to have answered: “Young man, go f**k yourself.”What a Plonker – Phillip Schofield was photographed with Matthew McGreevy on a number of occasions during the latter’s youth.What a Plonker – The television presenter with his “friend” at a later date.
Unmodernised ‘set’ in “rule-ridden” Albany, Piccadilly that was the London home of eccentric antiques dealer and ‘King of Chelsea’ Christopher Gibbs for sale; tour the home of the man who got Princess Margaret high on hash
Expelled from Eton “for being generally totally impossible,” antiques dealer Christopher Gibbs (1938 – 2018) was not a man one would have imagined would have liked the idea of living in a place with archaic rules. This “peacock pied piper to society in the Swinging Sixties” whose “drug consumption awed even Keith Richards,” however, surprisingly chose as his London base Albany in Mayfair and now his former residence is for sale.
“A hermitage; quiet as a lagoon, secluded from the roar of Piccadilly” according to the author Sheila, Countess of Birkenhead in her 1958 tome Peace in Piccadilly, Albany – which is only ever referred to as ‘The Albany’ by the extremely ill-advised – quintessential dandy Gibbs lived in the building for “more than half [his] life.” Whilst also owning properties including Davington Priory in Kent – which he later sold to Bob Geldoff – and a “mystic hangover” home in Tangier, it was here that this ‘King’ of “distressed bohemian” style found a place that offered him: “Perfection for a singleton, an oasis of serenity in the frenetic heart of West London.”
This curious “cloistered world” has numbered Sir Isaiah Berlin, Alan Clark, Lord Byron, William Gladstone, J. B. Priestley, W. Somerset Maugham and Terence Stamp amongst those who have passed its vetting committee of trustees and Gibbs – a man who legendarily got Princess Margaret so high on marijuana that she had to go to hospital – even embraced its “no pets, no children, no whistling, no noise and absolutely no publicity” policy.
Antiques dealer Christopher Henry Gibbs, (29th July 1938 to 28th July 2018), son of The Hon. Sir Geoffrey Gibbs KCMG and Lady (Helen) Gibbs CBE, was called the ‘King of Chelsea’ due to his ability as the ultimate connector. He put the Rolling Stones together with Prince Rupert Loewenstein (whom became their business manager) and he persuaded his friend John Paul Getty, Jr. to donate £50 million to the British National Gallery in 1985.Christopher Gibbs by Robert Mapplethorpe and with Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull.Christopher Gibbs pictured in his bathroom at L6 Albany, Albany Courtyard, Piccadilly, Mayfair, London, W1J 0AZ; the bathroom as it is today is in need of “some updating” according to agents GreenHunt.‘Set L6’ circa 2013, as furnished then by Christopher Gibbs.
Photographed there by the curmudgeonly Victor Watts on a daybed that allegedly belonged to Lord Tennyson, described the home he created in an article for The New York Times’ ‘Style Magazine’ in April 2013:
“I had the place to myself and proceeded to make it my own in the accustomed style: sober mahogany, Oriental rugs, family pictures. I’ve continually reordered these rooms, distilling, paring, pruning, as chaste as my voluptuous nature allows.”
“So enraptured with my Albany life did I become that, reason deserting me (not for the first or last time) I gave up a spacious Bond Street gallery where I had my antiques shop and took one at the back of Albany, a small if elegant space with an entrance into the building, another onto the street and best of all a door into the underground passage – a quiet, invisible stroll home.”
“I love returning from Morocco, where I now spend much of my time, seeing the friendly porters at the door, hearing the clip-clop of feet on the Rope Walk, seeing the old-timers sitting in the little ivy-lined garden, sunning themselves by the little bronze statue of Antinous and the fountain, regularly invaded by the ducks from St. James’s Park – and enjoying sudden glimpses into other people’s lives through uncurtained windows, the hours marked only by the clock chimes of St. James’s Church, accompanied by the more uptempo tinkling of the clock at Fortnum & Mason, our local grocers.”
“At this point, when I am in London, I can’t imagine staying anywhere but Albany – all the more reason, perhaps, to clam up, maintain the longstanding omertà (or I should say discretion) that has held sway for centuries now, and count my blessings.”
Gibbs’ former home, ‘Set L6,’ is situated on the second floor in Albany’s Courtyard. It extends to some 1,178 square foot and includes a hall, reception room, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom. On the third floor, a separately accessed studio space has a shower room and kitchenette and of the property, the selling agents remark: “Whilst capable of immediate occupation, [it] does require the bathrooms being upgraded.”
Sold for just £60,000 ($75,000, €69,000 or درهم275,000) leasehold in March 2019 (presumably the term must have been very much towards its end), agents GreenHunt listed ‘Set L6 Albany’ on Zoopla first in May that year. Now, in April 2020, it remains for sale, but is instead listed on Primelocation. They seek £925,000 ($1.2 million, €1.1 million or درهم4.2 million) and offer it on a new 20-year leasehold with an upfront premium and a peppercorn ground rent.
Living in the building is not just the preserve of those with deep pockets. Peviously, in 2014, we featured ‘Set A5 Attic Albany’ – which was just £395 per week ($494, €454 or درهم1,800 per week) – whilst for those looking for something grander currently, a second and third floor freehold set is currently available through Sotheby’s International Realty for £4.95 million ($6.19 million, €5.69 million or درهم22.73 million). It extends to 1,890 square feet, is described as “meticulously refurbished” and includes an especially impressive drawing room.
Christopher Gibbs quoted:
“[I’ve always attracted] the grand and the raffish and the fast and the chic.”
“[I am] monumentally narcissistic.”
“I am a bit snooty… I do make exceptions, but very few.”
“We are here to learn, and my goodness I have a lot to learn.”
“[I was expelled from Eton for] Rabelaisian antics – illicit drinking, pantry raids of other boys’ rooms – that sort of thing.”
“Taste is something you catch – like measles or religion.”
“I like things in their natural state – people especially. As life goes by, that’s what I admire: objects and people that are unmonkeyed with, that are themselves, not trying to be something else.”
“I’m not interested in creating a dazzling impression of richness. We can make do with surprisingly little in life. It is best to have a few things which are really nice. I don’t approve of the mean look, but I do approve of the spare look, where every little bit is telling.”
“Being a shopkeeper, I used to sell things, sometimes.”
“I definitely suffer from the blown-mind syndrome… The only thing I’ll say in my favour, is that I was practically the only person I knew who actually went to work at nine o’clock in the morning, whether I’d been up to eight o’clock or not, because I had a job, my own business, and I realised that, if I didn’t, I wouldn’t have any of those things.”
“[I] help people make nice cosy homes where they are going to live happy, beautiful lives.”
“[I] encourage friends to dig into their heirlooms, to wear old clothes, to turn their backs on ugliness and conformism.”
“Collectors today want a good car, a good sound system, and a huge pink heart painted by Damien Hirst with dying butterflies on it which costs £400,000. Yet for much less you could buy something completely fascinating made 300 years ago.”
Quotes about Christopher Gibbs:
“Taste is difficult to define, but his is absolute perfection” – Min Hogg, founding editor of World of Interiors.
“[He was] like an 18th century English parson who knew more about Etruscan vases than anyone at the British Museum” – Sir John Richardson, July 2018.
“I’m here to learn how to be a gentleman” – Mick Jagger of his then neighbour Christopher Gibbs whilst at a dinner party at his house.
“He was very flash… Sometimes he just wore tight jeans or fancy dress, like the others; but mostly his tastes were elaborate; suits with double-breasted waistcoats and cloth-covered buttons, and velvet ties, and striped Turkish shirts with stiff white collars, and cravats. Above all, he had a passion for carnations and was forever buying new strains, pink-and-yellow, or green-ink, or purple with red flecks” – Nik Cohn, author of Today There Are No Gentlemen, January 1971.
“Part Montesquieu, part Beau Brummel, and part Baudelaire… [Christopher Gibbs was a] well-born Renaissance man with an unmatched eye for aesthetics and a talent for friendship and the mot juste” – Hamish Bowles, international editor at large for Vogue, July 2018.
“Christopher was almost single-handedly responsible for making English antiques, and English heritage, look ‘cool’ again” – James Reginato of Vanity Fair, July 2018.
“A connoisseur of the weird and the wonderful” – Christopher Mason of The New York Times, September 2000.
“[He was an] acid-tripping ex-roué once known as the King of Chelsea” – Bitter words from the ex-Daily Mail ‘journalist’ and poison pen James Delingpole, executive editor of Breitbart.
“[The] avatar of Swinging London” – A more kind description from Sam Roberts of The New York Times.
“Christopher Gibbs: the man who brokered £50 million Getty grant to the National Gallery – and fed Princess Margaret hash brownies” – Huon Mallalieu of The Art Newspaper, July 2018.
The entrance hallway of ‘Set L6’ has a fireplace.The master bedroom of ‘Looking into the reception room.The somewhat basic kitchen is definitely in need of an upgrade.The view from the set.Albany’s famous ‘Rope Walk’ – Of it, Gibbs commented: “So ingrained is the sense of decorum that even to utter a friendly hello to a neighbor as we pass on the stone stairs or the covered outdoor canopy, known as the Rope Walk, might be violating a taboo, as if a few words of small talk could break the spell of privacy we Albanians prize so deeply. (A nod suffices, a hat raised to a lady.)”Residents have access to the most peaceful outside spaces.The third floor space included in the sale is arranged as a long, thin studio room.It has a small kitchenette.And a somewhat dated shower room.A plan indicating how ‘Set L6’ is currently arranged.A plan of the third floor studio space.
Chelsea estate agent optimistically markets an £850 per week house with unpainted walls and an exposed gas meter by announcing: “It does have a new boiler”
Other than the legendary Roy Brooks, the only honest man in his game, estate agents will be optimistic about just about anything. A bit of damp: “no problem”; a nuclear power station next door: “positively charming” but John D. Wood & Co. truly take the biscuit with the marketing material for a property they are currently trying to let in chi-chi Christchurch Street, Chelsea, London.
Sent to us by an eagle eyed reader, the £850 per week ($1,108, €955 or درهم4,070 per week), 867 square foot three floor aforementioned house has conventional features such as a reception room, kitchen, three bedrooms and a bathroom. It also, rather unconventionally, has walls that haven’t even been painted and are just bare plaster. Pictures show also scruffily made-up beds propped up on wooden blocks, wiring and ageing televisions discarded on the floors and a garden littered with leaves.
Of this strange offering, our reader remarked: “I saw this listing and thought it was a half-finished project and up for sale, but no, it’s a rental. Buy-to-let plainly says can’t afford to finish it, says sod it and tries to rent it out in a half-finished state and describe it as a ‘unique house packed with character and charm.’ I particularly like the exposed gas meter!”
When he telephoned, a member of staff at John D. Wood told our reader: “The landlord would prefer to rent the property ‘as is’ and not do further work. It would be at least £1,000 per week if it were finished. He is happy for any tenant to paint and make further improvements.”
In typical estate agent fashion, she optimistically added: “It does have a new boiler.”
Roy Brooks – “A painfully honest estate agent”
“Beyond any doubt the best copywriter for property advertising in the history of the British press,” Roy Brooks (died 1971) took a “puckish delight in telling the truth” about the houses he was asked to sell.
An example of this Kings Road based eccentric’s advertisements read:
“Do not be misled by the trim exterior of this modest period res with its dirty broken windows; all is not well with the inside. The décor of the nine rooms, some of which hangs inelegantly from the walls, is revolting. Not entirely devoid of plumbing, there is a pathetic kitchen and one cold tap. No bathroom, of course, but Chelsea has excellent public baths. Rain sadly drips through the ceiling on to the oilcloth. The pock-marked basement floor indicates a thriving community of woodworm, otherwise there is not much wrong with the property… Sacrifice £6,750.”
Another announced:
“Wanted: Someone with taste, means and a stomach strong enough to buy this erstwhile house of ill-repute in Pimlico. It is untouched by the 20th century as far as conveniences for even the basic human decencies are concerned. Although it reeks of damp or worse, the plaster is coming off the walls and daylight peeps through a hole in the roof, it is still habitable judging by the bed of rags, fag ends and empty bottles in one corner. Plenty of scope for the socially aspiring to express their decorative taste and get their abode in The Glossy, and nothing to stop them putting Westminster on their notepaper. Comprises 10 rather unpleasant rooms with slimy back yard, £4,650 Freehold. Tarted up, these houses make £15,000.”
Justifying his reasoning for driving his Rolls-Royce from London to Russia loaded up with 1,000 pairs of shoes, Brooks – author of Brothel in Pimlico and Mud, Straw and Insults: Confessions of an Honest Estate Agent – glibly explained: “I take these for old times’ sake – Stalingrad and the defeat of the German hordes. Perhaps I could bring back in return some of their women engineers whose factories I saw prefabricating good homes by the thousands.”
New contributor Jacina Coyne on how to spend a day in Petworth, West Sussex
Petworth is well known for its synonymous stately home and its grounds by ‘England’s greatest gardener’, Capability Brown. This is a charming gem of a town in the English countryside and is easily accessible from London. I reached it in an hour with no traffic.
Overflowing with character, Petworth boasts over forty antiques shops and they are well known for the treasures within them. While this town is easy going, it also boasts sophisticated tastes.
I would suggest this to be the ideal place to take a visiting friend who wishes to see a bit of the English countryside; you will be hard pressed, in fact, to find anywhere better for a better day trip.
My five must visits are:
The Leconfield
A two rosette stared restaurant with a glorious outdoor dining area. The food is exquisite and the menu thoughtful; the atmosphere is relaxed but the service is five star.
A wonderful Georgian house brimming with everything from objets d’art to personalised monogrammed bags by the stylish yet practical Italian brand My Style Bags. Here, also, you’ll find the only concession of Linley outside London.
The best ready meals on the market according to The Telegraph’s Xanthe Clay. For me, though, it was their pecan pie that topped the bill. Be sure to take home a feast from this foodie’s paradise.
Bentley R-Type Continental Fastback originally owned by the son of the founder of clothing giant Burton heads to auction at the Salon Privé sale (more…)
This thrice married daughter of the novelist Dame Barbara Cartland was allegedly fathered by Prince George, Duke of Kent and has worked her way through five titles. Upwardly mobile, she’s been described as “larger than life” but was so unpopular with her step-children that they nicknamed her “Acid Raine”. During Mohamed Fayed’s ownership of Harrods, Raine Spencer was made a director and was often to be found manning the tills during sales. Her step-son, Earl Spencer, described this mother of four as having a taste in decoration that is akin to “the wedding cake vulgarity of a five-star hotel in Monaco”.
