CoQodac’s gleaming black and gold dining room is excited, and hasn’t even opened for dinner yet. A “rappers and podcast presenters” table is enjoying a late caviar and champagne lunch of $ 4,000, says executive chef Seng Kyu Kim. He doesn’t care – he wants his restaurant in Manhattan, famous for his chicken nuggets covered with caviar ($ 28 per nugget), be a place where people come to celebrate.
While avian flu forces stores in the US to ration chicken eggs at $ 10 per dozen, salt -healed fish eggs have become ubiquitous in haute cuisine restaurants. The viscous and salty spheres can now be found on top of sour cream and onion Dips of $ 68 in Nashville and $ 73 egg salads in San Francisco. But while customers’ perception of caviar as a luxury that is worth paying has remained remarkably resilient for more than a century, wholesale cost of caviar – specifically, sturgeal eggs – has fallen considerably in recent years.
“There is a caviar fever, and every time someone asks me why, I say the same thing: an influx of chinese caviar at super low prices,” said Edward Panchernikov, director of operations at Caviar Russe, a caviar restaurant in New York.
Wild caviar is illegal under the International Trade Convention on threatened species. Russian caviar, which represents a small percentage of global supply, is under US sanctions. Today, most of the US imported caviar is grown in China, where low labor costs, abundance of navigable roads and government support have helped reduce prices. Precise data is scarce – caviar represents a small fraction of commodity imports – but the average price of a kilizer imported in the US was about $ 240 in 2020, below $ 440 in 2014, according to the European Fishing and Aquaculture Market Observatory.
China has faced multiple food security scandals in recent years, as well as accusations of unjustly competing in price; Importers say this has managed the public perception of its caviar industry. But the scale of Chinese Aquaculture means that there is a huge variation in the quality of caviar sold, even within the same sturgeon farm. Just as the best vineyards can produce grapes for the most coveted wines and sell the rest to supermarket bottles, the same farm can produce the best Ostera disputed by Michelin and low quality caviar restaurants sold at low prices.
In fact, the price of Chinese caviar can vary dramatically – chefs cited wholesale prices (including importers’ margins) from $ 500 to $ 1,500 per kilogram, and retailers say it can reach only $ 400. Price pressures throughout the market make it very difficult for small household caviar farms to compete. (Marshallberg Farm, a US producer who provides caviar to the Plaza Hotel, said its balance cost to produce a kilizer is $ 1,000 to $ 1,200.)
Continues after advertising
Chefs note that some of the most expensive and desirable sturgens in the world come from China.
“Consistency, taste and salinity are very, very accurate,” Kim said at CoQodac. And crucially, chefs can be more generous with their portions, creating an atmosphere of indulgence.
Modern, a Danny Meyer restaurant with two Michelin stars in downtown Manhattan, serves a caviar hot dog on its bar menu: two cocktail sausages, each covered with about four grams of golden golden bread, in mini brioche breads for $ 39. Crab with the same variety, a plate of a bite for $ 22.
Continues after advertising
If caviar is cheaper now, why do customers still pay a premium price? Part of the answer is that consumers still perceive it as a luxury, and education about quality variation was behind the market. “Consumers are not thinking much about it,” says Lianne Won, co-owner of Marshallberg Farm. “They think: Okay, it’s caviar. Of course it’s expensive. They don’t think where it comes from.”
And despite the rise of Chinese caviar, when selling directly to customers, many importers still prefer not to specify the country of origin. Retail sites claim that caviar was harvested in the immaculately clean waters of the thousand islands lake, but never mention China. (China’s qiandao lake, which translates as “a thousand islands”, is where Kaluga Queen, the world’s largest caviar supplier, is headquartered). “There is still some prejudice,” said Hossein Aimani, head of Paramount Caviar, who provides Chinese caviar to restaurants like Le Bernardin in New York.
Swell over origin as a way of boosting demand and prices is also a sacred tradition, as old as caviar trade. In the nineteenth century, when the supply of American sturgeon was abundant, the only caviar considered worthy of paying dear was from the Caspian Sea. American bars offered free domestic caviar, such as peanuts, as industrial exporters to Europe pretended that their supply was from the Caspian, Richard Carey wrote in his 2005 caviar history, The Philosopher Fish: Sturgeon, Caviar, and the Geography of Desire.
Continues after advertising
But while caviar is on the rise, its abundance and growing popularity in more affordable markets can threaten industry itself. The luxurious and rare story of sturgeal eggs is “under attack,” said Panchernikov from the Russe caviar. “People are trying to trivialize it and take this sense of specialty out of caviar.” Menu prices remain high not only because traders still have good margins, but because – as in all luxury things – price is the central point. “Accessible caviar is an oxymoron,” said David Stephen, aquaculture scientist and caviar industry consultant.
The true power of eggs for chefs is less at their cost and more in their ability to generate enthusiasm. When the New York Temple Bar began offering caviar buumps for $ 20 at the end of 2021, it drew attention “not because they were serving caviar, but because they were doing it as buumps, mocking it,” said Rachel Harrison, a hospitality -advertising veteran. This made customers laugh; They took pictures to social networks, which brought more customers. For $ 20, it seemed more like ordering another drink than spending $ 200 on a caviar service.
Thomas Allen, chef of The Modern, says the role of the hot dog with caviar is to capitalize on the ingredient’s ability to generate enthusiasm in clients, not margins. They compensate for the cost on other items, such as drinks or desserts. “The hot dog is like a moment of well-being that makes you smile,” he said. “You will probably not ask for that, you will ask for other things. Instead of being a source of profit, “it’s more like our Costco roasted chicken,” said Allen, referring to the retailer’s famous $ 4.99 product, immune to inflation.
Continues after advertising
Chef Max Wittawat of the Bangkok Supper Club calls the Uni Tortinha “Hero dish”. The restaurant does not get much margin with it, but attracts customers, looks good on social networks and – as it is not a dish that fills – increases spending by client. “China has made caviar more affordable for everyone. But in the restaurant, customers still enjoy it, still see caviar as a luxury,” he said. Likewise, COQODAC’s chef knows that people won’t ask for a chicken nugget and call it dinner, so he keeps the price within (relative) boundaries while using high quality caviar, and almost everyone wants to order one. “We are not really making money from it. It’s just to bring enthusiasm,” said Kim. “It’s about sustainability.”
Caviar’s appeal has always been that it is a little extravagant. Like the great champagne, the cost, history and pure financial irresponsibility have always had an erotic subtext under its culinary appeal, why we chose it when the occasion seems special. But now that caviar is no longer so rare, chefs are playing with him, treating him like just another ingredient, though with low labor costs (they just need to open a can). And in the case of an economic recession, they need dishes that can attract customers and boost spending on prices that are not fully inaccessible.
Still, the relative accessibility of high quality caviar may change soon as China tariffs reach importers, while Chinese aquaculture on scale threatens to push medium -level caviar supply above what the market can withstand. “I hope there is no excess, but there is a lot of caviar in the market now,” said Aimani. It is likely, he said that more restaurants start buying inferior and cheaper lower quality caviar to fill the gap.
Meanwhile, caviar remains ubiquitous. “Caviar was labeled by society as a luxury ingredient,” said Mike Bagale, executive chef at Sip & Guzzle restaurant in New York. “I try to serve you almost at cost price. I don’t want to get into the idea of charging too much for a good commodity, serving it in small quantities.” It serves it on a Ranch DIP with Koji and inflated chicken skin ($ 125). The relative accessibility of caviar today means that it can be generous.
“They are fish eggs. It doesn’t have to be super adorned or delicate or placed with fish fillets in a haute cuisine restaurant,” said Bagale. It serves Greek caviar with ice cream, $ 70 for 10 grams. “In the end, it’s salt.”
© 2025 Bloomberg L.P.
