Money
Making money
Sending out for the world's poshest pizza
Cashed in your stock options? Celebrate. Send out for a pizza. Margherita, Napoletana, Marinara, Hawaiian, you choose. And don't hold on the extra toppings. Do you want anchovies on that, or caviar? Extra topping of anchovies costs 50p from my local pizza delivery joint. But caviar comes in at a little bit more, writes Julian Champkin
Gordon Ramsay used to offer a pizza with white truffle topping; white truffle retails at around £300 for 50 grammes. Shove a shaving or two of that on top of a Ramsay pizza at his Maze restaurant in London and behold, you were looking at the £100 pizza, which was hailed as the world's most expensive at the time, which was a couple of years ago. And it wasn't even delivered to your door.
Sorry, Gordon, but you weren't even trying. That was then. Restaurateur Nino Selmaj in New York is doing rather better. His pizza has lobster tail on it, and salmon roe, but it's the caviar that adds the dollars. You have heard of Quattro Formaggi - pizza with four cheeses, for those who just can't make up their minds which of mozzarella, gorgonzola, parmesan or pecorino they prefer. This pizza has four different kinds of caviar - eight ounces of the stuff - for those who just can't remember which sort of fish-eggs they like most. Oh, and it has crème fraiche as well; and a sprinkling of chives, the last ingredient probably not adding significantly to the cost. Which comes out at a mere thousand dollars - £490 at current exchange rates - per 12-inch round - or, if you are going to be cheapskate about it, he'll sell you a quarter slice for $250.
But that little creation pales; eat your heart out, New York; it is Glasgow which has the £2,150 pizza. Chef Domenico Crolla's Pizza Royale 007 - he is a James Bond fan - has a base - organic, of course - spread with the obligatory tomato sauce. There is Scottish smoked salmon on top of that. Also medallions of best venison. Also lobster, which has been marinaded in cognac - the finest cognac, naturally, Remy Martin Louis XIII which comes in at £600 a bottle. And there is champagne-soaked Beluga caviar to fill up any extra space on the 12-inch round. What else do you want with it - solid gold?
You get that as well. The final topping is edible 24-carat gold leaf which comes from Mappin and Webb, who happen also to be jewellers to the Queen.
It is delivered, not by motor-scooter and unemployed actor but by jet plane and the chef himself. Crolla flew from Glasgow to Rome to make it in the home of the only person so far to order one, a gourmet Italian lawyer and his wife. Happily the money went to charity.
But, as I said, you don't have to be that extravagant with a home-delivery pizza. You could always order Chinese instead.
