The World's Most Expensive Ice Cream Costs Over $6,600 Per Serving
The gelato features white truffles, Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, and gold leaf (of course).
Courtesy of Guinness World Records
The website for Cellato, an ultra-luxe Japanese ice cream brand, brags that its gelato is so good, it will “delight even your cells.” That may be true, but the company’s high-end desserts may not exactly delight your wallet.
Earlier this week, the Guinness Book of World Records confirmed that Cellato set a new record for the World’s Most Expensive Ice Cream. The ice cream, called “Byakuya,” is a combination of white truffles imported from Alba, Italy; Parmigiano Reggiano cheese; and sake lees, a byproduct of the sake production process. The resulting frozen dessert costs an absolutely eye-watering ¥873,400 ($6,696) for a single 130 mL (4.4 ounce) serving.
“A rich and mellow gelato with two types of cheese as a base and white truffle with a sensual and unique scent,” Cellato writes of the ice cream. “The faint sweetness and gorgeous ginjo incense give the scent of white truffles a complex flavor. To finish, white truffles and Parmigiano cheese that look like snow are luxuriously placed and decorated with gold leaf.”
Courtesy of Guinness World Records
Why is it so expensive? Mostly because of those truffles, which can cost almost $15,200 per kilogram. The ice cream is packaged with white truffle oil, along with a special handmade metal spoon that has been crafted out of the same materials featured in some of Kyoto’s temples and shrines.
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According to Guinness, although Cellato specifically tried to break the bank with this ice cream, it also wanted to use both Japanese and European ingredients in its record-setting attempt. Leading the company’s effort was Tadayoshi Yamada, the head chef at Osaka fusion restaurant RiVi.
"It took us over 1.5 years to develop, with a lot of trials and errors to get the taste right,” a Cellato spokesperson told Guinness. “Achieving a Guinness World Records title made the effort all worth it.”
And of course you can’t just pull this stuff out of the freezer and dig right in. Cellato advises that, for starters, you mix the white truffle oil into the ice cream, combining the two until it’s soft enough to dip a spoon into. If it’s not quite ready, you can pop it in the microwave for 10 to 20 seconds (and yet it almost sounds blasphemous to put the $6,600 ice cream into the same box that you nuke your Hot Pockets in).
Byakuya isn’t Cellato’s only pricey dessert. It also has another ice cream called Starry Night, which is made with black truffles, chocolate, and yuzu juice. That sells for a bargain-by-comparison ¥10,000, or about 72 bucks.
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