If you want to get a taste of the priciest ice cream in the world, it may set you back a couple of months’ rent or the cost of a used car. The newly-crowned Guinness World Record titleholder for the world’s most expensive ice cream costs $6,696 for a single portion and features luxurious ingredients typically found on gourmet restaurant menus.
This record-breaking frozen treat is a high-grade gelato called Byakuya, made by the Japanese ice cream brand Cellato. It’s flavored with white truffle, Parmigiano Reggiano, and sake lees, a traditional Japanese ingredient that’s a byproduct of the sake production process. Cellato describes Byakuya as a “rich and mellow gelato” with “a sensual and unique scent,” thanks to those complex, flavorful ingredients.
Portions of the ice cream are finished with more white truffle, cheese, and some edible gold leaf. The pricey dessert also comes with a white truffle oil meant to be poured atop the gelato and a hand-crafted metal spoon made with the same techniques and materials used to construct temples and shrines, according to Cellato.
“It took us over 1.5 years to develop, with a lot of trials and errors to get the taste right. Achieving a Guinness World Records title made the effort all worth it,” a Cellato representative said in a statement to Guinness.
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The white truffle is the main culprit for the astronomical price. Cellato said that it sourced rare Phantom White Truffles from Alba, Italy, that were “sold at the highest price ever.” According to Guinness, these special truffles are priced at two million yen, the equivalent of about $15,192, per kilogram.
If you can afford to pay nearly $7,000 for one dessert, Cellato recommends pouring the white truffle oil over the gelato and stirring until it’s soft enough to insert a spoon. The company says that it can ship the product to customers on a frozen flight, which means that the gelato will stay chilled during the shipping process.
Though the Byakuya gelato now holds the crown as the world’s most expensive ice cream, a famous New York City restaurant launched an even more outrageously priced frozen dessert earlier this year as a limited-edition offering for Valentine’s Day. This dessert from Serendipity3 came with the restaurant’s signature Frrrozen Hot Chocolate, edible gold, gold straws, edible diamonds, and a diamond-studded 18k white gold bypass ring all for the enormous price tag of $250,000.
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Zoe Strozewski
Zoe Strozewski is a News Writer for Eat This, Not That! A Chicago native who now lives in New Jersey, she graduated from Kean University in 2020 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. Read more about Zoe
