A lower-Manhattan restaurant called Industry Kitchen has created a $2,000 gilded pizza that would feel right at home in one of our fine jewelry showcases.
Completely covered in strips of 24-karat gold leaf and sprinkled with 24-karat gold flakes, "The fancy'za" is marketed to the tony Wall Street crowd who can afford to purchase what may be the most expensive pizza to ever emerge from a wood-fired oven.
Certainly, you need more than gold leaf to make a luxurious pizza, and Industry Kitchen's executive chef Braulio Bunay took the challenge seriously.
The pizza starts with a squid ink dough, which needs to rest for 48 hours. The chef stretches the greyish-black dough and tops it with a generous portion of Stilton cheese from England. Next, it's baked in a wood-fired oven at 585 degrees.
Once cooked, the pizza is sliced into eight pieces and is ready for a number of ultra-special toppings, including shaved truffles and slices of foie gras from France, 24-karat gold leaf and gold flakes, large dollops of Osetra caviar from the Caspian Sea and edible flowers. The gold leaf is delicately applied in rows of one-inch-wide strips, while the gold flakes are added using a shaker.
"It is the epitome of decadence," Bunay told Town and Country. “The pizza is extremely rich. If you’re in the mood for a lavish meal, this is the pizza for you.”
Those interested in trying Bunay's glittery and pungent pie at the restaurant's South Street location in the Financial District will need to order it 48 hours in advance (the squid ink dough needs that time to do its thing).
Interestingly, of all the extraordinary ingredients layered onto "The fancy'za" pizza, the 24-karat gold elements are the least tasty. In fact, gold leaf and gold flakes have no taste at all. They're used for their aesthetic value.
Bunay is not the only chef to add gold to his pizzas. Last year, over at Pizza Hut's test kitchen in Plano, Texas, the fast food chain came up with a special version of its Stuffed Garlic Knots Pizza that was topped with $100 worth of edible 24-karat gold.
Fifty fans who ordered that type of pizza on the day of the 2016 Super Bowl were surprised when a Pizza Hut delivery person drove up with the gilded version. The pizza was presented in a specially designed golden box along with a $100 Pizza Hut Gold Card.
Check out Insider's video, which shows how Bunay assembles his gilded pizza...
Credits: Screen captures via YouTube.com/Insider; Pizza image via Facebook/IndustryKitchenNYC.
