Boca Raton, Fla. – Would you pay $100 for a hamburger? Marc Sherry is betting that a lot of folks will.
He’s the owner of the Old Homestead Steak House, with locations in New York, Atlantic City and now the tony South Florida enclave of Boca Raton.
Sherry this week unveiled the Tri-Beef Burger, calling it, variously, the “Beluga caviar of sandwiches,” the “Rolls-Royce of burgers” and the “Romeo and Juliet of food.”
The burger contains three kinds of beef, from three continents: corn-fed American prime cattle from Colorado, free-range cattle from the Argentine pampas and Japanese Wagyu cattle raised on soybeans and beer then bathed in sake and hand-massaged.
For Tuesday’s official first tasting, the beef was flown into Fort Lauderdale, then driven to the restaurant in a climate-controlled, armored stretch Hummer limousine.
The restaurant’s chefs unloaded the plastic-wrapped meat, hoisting the heavy packages on their shoulders and carrying them into the kitchen.
While TV cameras and reporters looked on, the chefs carefully ground the meat onto a silver platter and formed it into several 20-ounce burgers.
“Almost the size of a softball,” said Sherry.
The burger is fried in about 8 ounces of grape-seed oil – “it’s healthier,” said Joe Galison, chef de cuisine – and then nestled onto a toasted brioche bun and topped with heirloom tomatoes, exotic mushrooms and organic micro greens.
Cheese is optional, and Galison would recommend some crumbled Maytag blue cheese (at no additional cost).
Fries are not included.
The burger measures 5 1/2 inches in diameter and 2 1/2 inches thick.
“I want you to have fun,” he said.
If you would like to enhance the flavor of the burger, Sherry suggests using his special chipotle sauce mixed with white truffles and champagne.
He also recommends washing the whole thing down with some Joseph Phelps Insignia cabernet. Cost: $60.
A glass.
