While the cost of the average Thanksgiving dinner has hit record highs, cracking the $50 mark for the first time ever, one New York restaurant blows that figure away, offering a meal that's 900 times more expensive.
The Old Homestead Steakhouse, famous for bringing Wagyu beef to the U.S., grabbed headlines last year for offering a $35,000 Turkey Day dinner. This year, the company went even bigger, offering three Thanksgiving dinners for a whopping $45,000 each.
Each meal is designed to feed eight people, Forbes reports, meaning it'd cost a cool $5,625 per person, if you and your family decided to split the bill. (This is one case where offering to pay the tip, if someone else picks up the bill, wouldn't be doing your budget any favors—you be shelling out roughly $9,000, if you're tipping 20 percent.)
Given the amount of food that's being served, though—and the amount you're paying—it seems like you could get away with squeezing in a few extra chairs. After all, here's what you'd be eating, while drinking from bottles of Cristal, Dom Perignon, Opus One and Silver Oak wines, and a 40-year-old Taylor port wine:
- Two 20-pound, free-range, organically raised turkeys seasoned with saffron and basted in artisanal, locally produced butter and extra virgin olive oil, which is imported from southern Italy
- A small mountain of stuffing containing two pounds of Wagyu beef—worth $500 alone—one pound of foie gras, four sourdough loaves that apparently cost $46 apiece
- Mashed potatoes with Swedish Moose House Cheese, valued at $300 per pound
- Pappy Van Winkle bourbon-infused gravy
- Cranberry-orange relish, featuring cranberries that have been soaked in Gran Marnier, $1,750-per-bottle Chateau Mouton Rothschild, and imported aged balsamic vinegar
- Sweet potatoes topped with Royal Osetra ooo caviar
- Butternut squash covered in winter black truffles
- Homemade pumpkin ice cream served with a $4,200 bottle of private reserve rum-infused eggnog sauce and, because no five-figure meal would be complete without it: edible, 24-carat gold flakes
Oh, and what's that nestled in the stuffing, just south of the bird's cavity? Why, a two-carat, sapphire-cut engagement ring, of course!
"Anyone can get engaged on Valentine's Day, but not many can do it with turkey and stuffing," Marc Sherry, owner of the Old Homestead Steakhouse, told ABC News, also explaining that Thanksgiving weekend kicks off "proposal season." So basically, he's just giving the 1 percent a whole new way to pop the question.
That's not all, though—the dinner actually extends well beyond the time you spend seated in the restaurant. The price includes two tickets to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, a $7,500 shopping spree at Bergdorf Goodman, a two-night stay at the Waldorf Astoria with door-to-door limousine service, a dance lesson at the Fred Astaire dance studio (to learn the most festively appropriate shimmy of the weekend, the Turkey Trot), a turkey-carving lesson at the restaurant, and a videographer to capture every bite you take during the meal.
Okay, the videographer is actually meant to capture the proposal—but who's to say that only the mega-wealthy who are ready to settle down want to partake in this meal? If you've got about $13,000 more than the median person's income to spend on one weekend, and this seems fiscally responsible for you, then who says you need someone else to complete you? Rock that ring on your right hand and Lean In.
And please, record every moment and post it on YouTube for the rest of us.
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