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Bangkok meal caters to rich for US$25,000 per person

Michelin three-star chef Jean-Michel Lorain from France reaches for a can of caviar while preparing for a 10-course dinner in Bangkok yesterday. For a price tag of US$25,000 a head, 40 people were to enjoy a dinner including Beluga caviar, truffles and Dom Perignon sorbet. PHOTO: AP

Beluga caviar, truffles and Dom Perignon sorbet were on the menu yesterday for a night of fine dining in Bangkok that chefs, wine experts and organizers have dubbed the meal of a lifetime.

Some of the world's wealthiest food lovers flew in for the dinner, which carried a stunning price tag of US$25,000 a head.

Tax and gratuities were not included in the price.

Six three-star Michelin chefs from France, Italy and Germany were set to cook the meal's 10 courses, each paired with a rare fine wine.

"It's surreal! The whole thing is surreal," said Alain Soliveres, the celebrated chef of Paris' Taillevent restaurant who was commissioned to prepare two of his signature dishes for the special meal.

He prepared the first dish on the menu, a creme brulee of foie gras accompanied by a 1990 Cristal champagne -- a bubbly that sells for more than US$500 a bottle, but still stood out as one of the cheapest wines on the menu.

"To have brought together all of these three-star Michelin chefs, and to serve these wines for so many people is just an incredible feat," Soliveres said ahead of the dinner.

Few expenses were spared in putting together the event, which was titled "Epicurean Masters of the World."

Chefs submitted their grocery lists to organizers and the ingredients were flown in fresh: black truffles, foie gras, oysters and live Brittany lobsters from France; caviar from Switzerland; Jerusalem artichokes and white truffles from Rome.

RARE WINES

Diners were to sip their way through legendary vintages, like a 1985 Romanee Conti, a 1959 Chateau Mouton Rothschild, a 1967 Chateau d'Yquem and a 1961 Chateau Palmer, considered "one of the greatest single wines of the 20th century," said Alun Griffiths of Berry Bros. & Rudd, the British wine merchants that procured and shipped about six bottles of each wine for the dinner.

Just the wine for the evening cost more than US$200,000, Griffiths said.

"Just to have one of these would be a great treat," he said. "To have 10 of them in one evening is the sort of thing that people would kill for."

The dinner was planned to be served to 40 people -- 15 paying customers and 25 invited guests.

Organizers scrambled to fill seats at the last minute after 10 Japanese people canceled their reservation, citing safety concerns after the New Year's Eve bombings in Bangkok that killed three, said Deepak Ohri, managing director of Bangkok's luxury Lebua hotel, which organized the dinner.

INTERNATIONAL GUESTS

Guests flew in from around Europe, the US and across Asia.

They included executives of Fortune 500 companies, a casino owner from Macau and a Taiwanese hotel owner, Ohri said, declining to reveal their identities.

To ensure discretion, diners were to be escorted to a restaurant on the hotel's 65th floor in a private elevator, and all staff with cellphones with cameras were to to check the devices at the door.

The chefs preparing the meal charge diners about US$260 for a meal at their own restaurants and said they were stunned by the exorbitant price.

"It's crazy," Antoine Westermann of Le Buerhiesel in France said.

"The fact that one meal could be this expensive," he shrugged.

"After this, nothing can shock me," Westermann added.

In a bid to give diners their money's worth, Westermann said he planned to shave 100g of Perigord truffles -- worth about US$350 onto each plate.

"For $25,000," he said, "what do you expect?"
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