You'll Need At Least P300,000 to Buy The World's Most Expensive Ice Cream
How much would you pay for ice cream?
If that number goes over P300,000, then you’re in the range of the most expensive ice cream in the world — at ¥880,000, this white truffle gelato just broke the world record for most expensive ice cream.
Recently, Guinness World Records announced that Cellato, an ultra-luxe Japanese ice cream brand, has nabbed the record for Most Expensive Ice Cream with a gelato that’s made with two kinds of cheeses (which includes Parmigiano Reggiano), white truffle, and sake lees. It’s called Byakuya, and according to Cellato’s website, one 130-ml serving costs Y880,000.
What Makes This Ice Cream So Expensive?
Cellato describes Byakuya as, “A rich and mellow gelato with two types of cheese as a base and white truffle with a sensual and unique scent.” It might be more common knowledge that Parmigiano cheese is expensive, but what really drives the price of this premium ice cream is the cost of the white truffles: they use a kind of rare white truffle grown only in Alba, Italy, which is priced at 2 million Japanese yen (that’s almost P800,000) per kilo!
Aside from the white truffles, they also feature the use of sake kasu or sake lees, a kind of white paste that’s a byproduct from sake production. Of this traditional Japanese ingredient, Cellato writes, “The faint sweetness and gorgeous ginjo incense give the scent of white truffles a complex flavor.”
The exquisiteness of Byakuya does not end with the creation of the ice cream, however. It is also served with “white truffles and parmigiano cheese that look like snow are luxuriously placed and decorated with gold leaf,” and it also comes with white truffle oil to give you that extra boost of fragrance. In fact, the site even instructs customers to mix the truffle oil into the ice cream until it’s soft enough to insert a spoon into it. Otherwise if the ice cream is too hard, Cellato advices to wait until the ice cream softens at room temperature or to pop it in a 500w microwave for 10-20 seconds.
It also comes with a metal spoon that’s handmade by Takeuchi craftsmen in Fushimi, Kyoto. And this isn’t just any kind of run-of-the-mill metal spoon: it is made with techniques and materials used in the constructions of traditional temples and shrines. You could get one of two different patterns randomly when you order.
Here’s what you get when you order Byakuya:
New record: Most expensive ice cream - JP¥873,400 (£5,469; €6,211; $6,696) made by OMER in Japan.
— Guinness World Records (@GWR) May 18, 2023
The ice cream includes edible gold leaf, white truffle and natural cheeses ???? pic.twitter.com/kaJOACEear
The Byakuya Wasn’t Just Crafted to Break Records
It would undoubtedly be a waste of resources and money to make ice cream as expensive as the Byakuya just for the sake of breaking a world record, which is why Cellato worked with Tadayoshi Yamada, head chef of RiVi, an Osaka restaurant renowned for its imaginative fusion cuisine. They wanted to fuse European and Japanese ingredients together, and head chef Tadayoshi Yamada had just the experience and skill to do so.
So, what does it taste like?
According to Cellato staff who participated in the tasting session, “… the robust fragrance of white truffle fills your mouth and nose, followed by complex and fruity tastes of Parmigiano Reggiano. Sake lees finishes off the glorious taste experience.”
And the endeavor to create a world-record-breaking ice cream was one that they took very seriously, too; in fact, Cellato representative tells Guinness World Records, “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.”
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Cellato isn’t a stranger at creating luxury ice creams, too. Byakuya (which translates to “white night” in English) has a cheaper but still quite pricey black truffle counterpart called Starry Night, a chocolate gelato made with high quality French chocolate, black truffles, and Japanese yuzu that’s priced at ¥10,000 (about P4,000) per 130ml serving.
For more information, check out Cellato’s website.
From: Yummy
