A New York City restaurant is set to charge $175 for a 24 carat gold-plated burger.
Mocha Burger Lux, a restaurant set to open this month in midtown Manhattan, will serve a 12-ounce short-rib burger wrapped in 24-karat gold leaves, topped with black Australian truffle, onions, chips, house-made sauce and pickles. Steaks, salads and sandwiches will also be on the menu.
The dish is brought in a hand-carved wood treasure chest, opened at the table, triggering smoke that will obscure its contents.
“You’re not paying for the piece of meat,” owner Naftali Abenaim, 47, told the New York Jewish Week. “You’re paying for the experience.”
“People don’t just go out to eat anymore — that’s like old-school cuisine,” said Abenaim, whose other restaurants include Soho’s Mocha Burger, Mocha Red Steakhouse and Mixology Bar. “You’re walking into a theatrical experience.”
Abenaim - who grew up in a modern Orthodox family in Montreal - hopes the new restaurant will draw diverse crowds to its two-story space, and be a destination for lunch as well as happy hour.
“We’re the only kosher restaurant with a real happy hour,” he claimed. “There is nothing in the area to go to — we’re going to have the Jewish and the non-Jewish crowd.”
“People who want to be seen” are the target market for the burger, Abenaim said. “We live in a world where everybody wants to be different. Everybody wants to be seen, to feel special.”
Abenaim told the New York Jewish Week that he imports his beef from Uruguay, because he cannot source kosher hormone- and antibiotic-free, free range, grass-fed cattle within the USA.
His establishments also offer what appears to be an unkosher combination of milk and meat, but instead of real dairy, the cheese in question will be made of non-dairy alternatives like coconut or almond milk.
