The World's Most Expensive Grilled Cheese Sandwich Is Rarely Available To Order

What's the most you would pay for a grilled cheese sandwich? Ten dollars? Twenty? What about $214? That's the price tag on The Quintessential Grilled Cheese Sandwich, now available at the Upper East Side restaurant Serendipity3. The restaurant — known for its egregiously priced gimmick desserts that the wealthy and trend-obsessed snap up with glee, including a $250,000 frozen chocolate covered in edible diamonds — has officially held the record for the most expensive sandwich in the world since 2014, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

Even if you've got the cash, however, you can't simply walk in and order this extremely fancy sandwich. Serendipity3's extravagant creations are often only offered for a limited time, and only brought back to the restaurant on occasion. In honor of National Grilled Cheese Day, the restaurant is offering The Quintessential Grilled Cheese Sandwich for another limited run, but if you want a taste, you'll need to give the restaurant two days' advance notice. 

In a press release, Serendipity3's Creative Director, Joe Calderone, said of the relaunch, "We are thrilled to be bringing back another one of our Guinness World Winning dishes that is a restaurant favorite and one of our most over-the-top offerings." 

Hey, at least they know it's a ridiculous thing to serve. So what exactly is this "quintessential" grilled cheese?

So what gives this sandwich the right to cost more than an inflation-induced winter gas bill? For starters, it's made with French Pullman champagne bread, which is like beer bread if instead of Heineken you threw a cup of Dom Pérignon in the dough. Oh, and there is 23k gold flakes in the bread and lining the edges of the sandwich. Is there truffle butter involved? Of course!

There's no American cheese or cheddar to be found in this sandwich, no sir. The gooey heart of this sandwich, Caciocavallo Podolico, comes from rare Italian cows that only eat fennel, licorice, juniper, laurel bay, and wild strawberries — which frankly sounds more like a recipe for gin than bovine chow — and who only produce milk two months out of the year. Seems like those cows have a pretty cushy job, and it makes you wonder what they spend the remaining ten months of the year doing.

Alongside the sandwich is a dipping bisque made from the best lobster tails in the world, sourced from South Africa and blended with San Marzano tomatoes, crème fraiche, and, of course, more truffle oil. Both the sandwich and the accompanying bisque are served in fine crystal. Because if you're going to pay more than two hundred dollars for some bread and cheese, it should at least be worth the Instagram pic.