Do you want fries with that? What if they were going to set you back hundreds?
- The fries are cooked in champagne, sprinkled with edible gold and seasoned with truffle salt
- There is an eight- to 10-week waitlist for the chips
- The chef said people go to the restaurant to "escape the reality of life"
A restaurant on Manhattan's Upper East Side in New York City is plating up the most expensive chips on the planet, with a single serve going for $US200 ($271).
The costly snack joins an already pricey menu, with Serendipity 3 also claiming world records for the most expensive burger ($US295) and ice cream sundae ($US1,000).
Guinness World Records certified the feat on July 13, making the fries officially the most expensive on Earth.
"Serendipity is really a happy place," creative director and chef Joe Calderone said.
The creme de la creme pommes frites start out as Chipperbec potatoes. They are blanched, or scalded, in vinegar and champagne.
Then they are fried in pure goose fat, not oil, and not once but twice, so they are crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside.
Sprinkled with edible gold and seasoned with truffle salt and truffle oil, they are served on a crystal plate with an orchid, thin-sliced truffles, and a Mornay cheese dip.
The sauce, too, is infused with truffles, a rare seasonal mushroom.
"Truffle is the main star here," corporate executive chef Frederick Schoen-Kiewert said.
Like many restaurants, Serendipity was closed during the COVID-19 pandemic and Calderone and Schoen-Kiewert thought the fancy fries would be a good way to announce its return.
The plan is working. There is an eight to 10-week waitlist for the chips.
"It's been a rough year and a half for everyone, and we need to have some fun now," Calderone said.
Reuters