Who in their right minds would spend $300 on a burger if there wasn’t something unbelievably wonderful about it, right? Well, let’s find out if that’s the case with some of the world’s most expensive burgers.
Burger Brasserie, Las Vegas
Lowly peasant, you may have already eaten the $10 burger at The Strip’s Burger Brasserie! Did you sneak a covetous look at the 777 Burger on the menu? The ingredients are certainly not your regular meat, bun and rabbit food: kobe beef, Maine lobster, imported brie cheese, caramelized onions, crisp prosciutto, and 100-year aged balsamic vinegar, with your choice of regular bun, oven-dried tomato ciabatta, aged parmesan bun or a caramelized onion bun.
Plus you get Dom Perignon with it. Want to turn the heads of other lowly peasants at the restaurant? Order the 777 and try not to scarf it down too quickly.
Fleur by Hubert Keller, Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas
If you thought the 777 Burger was obscenely expensive, the $5000 Fleurburger is probably satanic. Chef Hubert Keller whips up a burger that you’ll burn a huge hole in your pocket for. But it would probably be worth it. Into the burger goes a patty of fresh Wagyu beef seared in rich butter, premium foie gras, black truffles sauteed in the duck fat from the foie gras, a fresh-baked brioche bun into which all this goodness goes. To top the fine dining experience, you get a bottle of 1995 Petrus which goes just perfectly with the burger. The cost of the meal is less due to the burger than the wine, but the pairing is hard to separate once you’ve tried it.
Burger Bar, Las Vegas
The price of the Rossini probably seems a lot more accessible, coming down from the others on list. But it’s still premium for the humble burger, which is not really so humble in the case of The Rossini. If you order it, you’ll bite into Kobe style Wagyu beef from Australia, shaved truffles and sauteed foie gras, and an onion bun, with a rich brown Black Perigord truffle sauce. It’s probably the closest you can come to the Fleurberger meal, minus the wine.
McGuire’s Irish Pub, Pensacola, Florida
The Grand Burger at this Florida pub is filet mignon turned into a patty, chargrilled and served with a side of caviar, Merlot sauce, and a bottle of Moet Imperial Champagne. Who says burgers can’t be classy?
DB Bistro Moderne, New York
This one’s definitely within your reach, though it does cost about as much as a round flight from Oklahoma to Los Angeles on a low cost carrier. The DB Burger comes with sirloin beef, braised short ribs, black truffle, foie gras in a parmesan bun with pommes frites, which is nothing but a fancy way of saying fries. This is the original DB Burger that you can find on the menu most of the time (for $35). But in the fall, when truffles are easier to find, you’ll find not just one additional layer of truffle on your burger, but two! They call it the DB Royale then, and take $140 off your wallet for it.
Serendipity 3, New York
This old restaurant is known for its record-breaking menu items – at the moment it’s the $1000 Golden Opulence Sundae that they’re taking 48-hours advance orders for. They also serve the Bling Burger, for a little under $300, which is decadent white truffle butter-induced Wagyu, black truffles, cave-aged cheddar, and a diamond-studded toothpick holding it all together.
These are some of the pricey burgers that you’d probably want to try at least once before you die. Also deserving mention are the $1768 Glamburger from Honky Tonk, London (topped with gold leaf), the $666 gold lead burger from a New York food truck called 666 Burger and the gold leaf burger from Wall Street’s Burger Shoppe. Is it suggestive that all these burger shops have now closed their doors? Does gold leaf have something to do with it? What do you think?