By
JOCELYN GECKER
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP)
- It's been billed as the "meal
of a lifetime," a 10-course dinner
concocted by world-renowned chefs for
the most discriminating palates and
- at $25,000 a head - the fattest wallets.
And that doesn't include tax and gratuity.
Few expenses were spared in putting
together Saturday night's culinary extravaganza
in Bangkok.
But at this price, even the most talented
chefs can find it challenging to give
diners their money's worth.
Antoine Westermann of Le Buerhiesel,
the famous restaurant in Strasbourg,
France, says he plans to shave 3 1/2
ounces of Perigord truffles - worth
about $350 - onto each plate.
"For $25,000, what do you expect?"
he said.
Westermann is one of six three-star
Michelin chefs - four from France and
one each from Italy and Germany - commissioned
to fix dinner at the Lebua luxury hotel
for 40 "Epicurean Masters of the
World." That's the title for the
event, organized by the hotel to promote
Thai tourism.
The menu features complicated creations
like "tartare of Kobe beef with
Imperial Beluga caviar and Belon oysters"
and "mousseline of 'pattes rouges'
crayfish with morel mushroom infusion."
Guests jetted in from the United States,
Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Deepak
Ohri, the Lebua's managing director,
declined to reveal their identities
but said they include Fortune 500 executives,
a casino owner from Macau and a Taiwanese
hotel owner.
|
(AP)
Michelin three star chef Jean-Michel
Lorain from France reaches
for caviar in a can for the dinner... |
"It's
surreal! The whole thing is surreal,"
said Alain Soliveres, the celebrated
chef of the Taillevent restaurant in
Paris.
Soliveres was preparing two of his signature
dishes, including the first course:
a "'creme brulee' of foie gras"
to be washed down with a 1990 Cristal
champagne - a bubbly that sells for
more than $500 a bottle, but still stands
out as one of the cheapest wines on
the menu.
"To have brought together all of
these three-star Michelin chefs, and
to serve these wines for so many people
is just an incredible feat," Soliveres
said ahead of the dinner. "It's
fabulous!"
Chefs submitted their grocery lists
to organizers and the ingredients were
flown in fresh: black truffles, foie
gras, oysters and live Brittany lobsters
from France; caviar from Switzerland;
Jerusalem artichokes and white truffles
from Rome.
Diners will sip their way through legendary
vintages, like a 1985 Romanee Conti,
a 1959 Chateau Mouton Rothschild, a
1967 Chateau d'Yquem and a 1961 Chateau
Palmer, considered "one of the
greatest single wines of the 20th century,"
said Alun Griffiths of Berry Bros. &
Rudd, the British wine merchants that
procured and shipped about six bottles
of each wine for the dinner.
The wine alone cost more than $200,000,
Griffiths said.
"Just to have one of these would
be a great treat," he said. "To
have 10 of them in one evening is the
sort of thing that people would kill
for."
Wine lovers regularly organize exorbitantly
expensive tastings in New York, London
and Japan but such events are not as
common in Thailand, where it would take
the average schoolteacher five years
to earn $25,000.
"That is a waste of money,"
said Rungrat Ketpinyo, 44, who sells
Phad Thai noodles for 75 cents a plate
from a street cart outside the hotel.
"I don't care how luxurious this
meal is. It's ridiculous."
Organizers said most of the profits
will go to two charities - Medecins
Sans Frontieres and the Chaipattana
Foundation - a rural development charity
set up by the king of Thailand.
"Expensive is very relative,"
said Ohri, the Lebua director. "Some
of the world's best chefs will be cooking
their best dishes with the finest vintage
wines."
"It is an experience of a lifetime."
Organizers scrambled to fill seats at
the last minute after 10 Japanese people
canceled their reservation, citing safety
concerns after the New Year's Eve bombings
in Bangkok that killed 3 people.
To ensure discretion, diners will be
escorted to a restaurant on the hotel's
65th floor in a private elevator, and
all staff in possession of cell phones
with cameras will have to check the
devices at the door.
The chefs confessed they were astonished
by the $25,000 price tag. A meal at
the own restaurants costs about $260.
"It's crazy," Westermann said.
"The fact that one meal could be
this expensive," he shrugged. "After
this, nothing can shock me."