The Midas touch
There’s a shocked story on the internet about a New York restaurant serving chicken wings coated in gold for US$1000.
It’s a great example of not doing the maths. Gold currently costs $42/gram, and culinary gold leaf is easily available for not much more than twice that. A gram of gold leaf is a lot: nearly a square metre.
In fact, if you track down a more detailed source — and in this case I’m sorry to say the Daily Mail qualifies — you find that 10 gold-covered wings sets you back $30, at a restaurant whose regular “small plates” wings are $15.
The $1000 price tag is for 50 wings plus a bottle of Champagne Armand de Brignac. It’s the posh bubbly that explains the stratospheric price, not the gold.
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »
But theres more …as they say.
Armand de Brignac Ace of Spades Gold Brut comes in a Gold plated bottle.
Do you think its over the top ?
7 years ago
Very much so. They wouldn’t be having that version, I think, but even the less extreme versions are still pretty extreme.
It’s just not the gold in the recipe that’s over the top.
7 years ago
Gold plated Coca Cola 100 yr Anniversary bottles are available for around US$25. Its surprisingly common but as well Armand de Brignac has a large shareholder in rapper Jay Z
https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2014/11/06/why-jay-zs-champagne-news-isnt-so-new/
7 years ago