Complaining about the prices at restaurants can get a little tired (especially when accompanied with proclamations like, “I can get this at the bodega for $2.50!”), but every so often, a dish comes along that’s so wildly expensive we just can’t let it go unnoticed. In May, we chronicled America’s most expensive hot dogs, and this week, we’re onto pizza and pasta.
Since both items consist mostly of flour, water, and occasionally egg, they’re generally inexpensive to produce. But when they’re embellished with pricier ingredients like squid ink, saffron, caviar, and the like, they can get seriously pricey.
In our search for the world’s most expensive pizza and pasta—which range from $125 to more than $2,000—we noticed that these dishes generally include truffle, that coveted subterranean fungus priced at $1,000-$2,000 a pound, depending on the season and quality of the product. Even a few shavings of the precious, funk-infused ingredient will set you back tens of dollars per bite.
Click thorough the gallery above to feast your eyes on some of the world’s most outrageously expensive pizza and pasta dishes.