If you’ve been looking for the most expensive Thanksgiving dinner, look no further.
After selling a max total of three Thanksgiving dinner packages last year at $150,000 apiece, New York City’s Old Homestead Steakhouse is one-upping itself to offer the world’s most expensive Thanksgiving experience yet again — this time at a total price tag of $181,000.
The over-the-top Thanksgiving package not only includes a culinary cornucopia of some of the world’s richest ingredients — headlined by two free-range, $145-per-pound gold-painted, gold-dusted and gold-flaked turkeys — but also equally rich experiences, like a $50,000 seven-day SeaDream Yacht Club Cruise for two, with luxurious owner’s suite accommodations.
At a total of $181,000, the package is roughly 3,700-times the average Thanksgiving dinner in America, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.
“Our culinary staff develops the menu and from there we seek out the most expensive ingredients in the world,” Old Homestead co-owner Marc Sherry tells Yahoo Finance.
Like last year’s record-breaking feast, this year’s dinner boasts imported rarities, like $1,200-per-pound Spanish bacon atop candied sweet potatoes paired with $300 per-pound imported white cheddar cheese from a farm in the U.K. The gravy is again infused with a $3,650 bottle of Louis XIII cognac, as is the cranberry sauce (featuring $250 per-dozen Japanese strawberries) with a Taylor Fladgate 40-year tawny port reduction.
New to the table this year, however, is a decadent seafood stuffing — a throwback to America’s first Thanksgiving dinner over three centuries ago, which featured more seafood than many people realize, Sherry says. The side not only starts with $125-per-loaf imported U.K. bread (which features a recipe that calls for champagne instead of water) but also includes Alaskan king crab, Maine lobster, Otoro tuna, and golden caviar from the Caspian Sea that costs more than $1,600 an ounce.
“I’m not sure that the Pilgrims had $1,600-an-ounce caviar back in the day, but for $181,000 we’re giving to it you,” Sherry joked.
The opulence doesn’t stop there. The dinner, which allows for up to 12 guests, also includes white asparagus that comes seasoned with $91 per-ounce imported Korean seasoning salt and topped with a vinaigrette infused with a 23-year-old special reserve Pappy Van Winkle bourbon that costs $3,800 per bottle. Creamy whipped potatoes, mixed with $850 per-pound European Pule cheese and $150 per-ounce French Echire butter, are served with imported black truffles which cost more than $1,000 per ounce. All the fixings are complemented with Opus One and Silver Oak wines as well as Cristal and Dom Perignon champagnes.
Sherry says his restaurant has already sold one of the three packages he’s offering this year at $181,000 to a repeat customer, but declined to name his client.
“We only do three because of the nature of how hard it is to produce and the amount of staff that’s going to be taken from the restaurant,” he says. “But we’ll do it at any event that you want, at any time of year.”
As rich as the menu sounds, the majority of the $181,000 Thanksgiving dinner’s price tag stems from an equally luxurious lineup of non-edible amenities. This year’s list not only includes the $50,000 SeaDream Yacht Club Cruise, but also a $20,000 Black Friday shopping spree and four tickets to Super Bowl LIV with first-class airfare and a stay at The Setai, Miami Beach.
Other amenities include his and her iPhone 11 Pro Max smartphones and a $5,500 trip with friends around New York in a Bentley Bentayga SUV, as well as a separate dinner for four, featuring the Japanese Wagyu beef steaks that helped make Old Homestead a famed New York steakhouse.
For Sherry, who first dreamed of the dinner experience five years ago with his brother and co-owner Greg, pushing the package to the extreme has become a fun challenge. The restaurant started the concept in 2014 at an original price of $35,000, but has added something new each year. The second dinner, for example, featured a 2-carat diamond engagement ring hidden in the stuffing at the base of the turkey, which one customer used to propose to his girlfriend. Last year, the gold-covered turkey came stuffed with keys to a 2018 Maserati Levante.
“I get so much out of preparing and creating with my staff this type of dish by the time Thanksgiving gets here I’m so happy, I’m so relaxed, I’m glad to sit down with family and enjoy myself,” he says.
Zack Guzman is the host of YFi PM as well as a senior writer and on-air reporter covering entrepreneurship, cannabis, startups, and breaking news at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @zGuz.
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