When I think of the ultra-rich and famous eating, I imagine a bronzed someone-or-other reclining on the aft deck of a superyacht, wearing sunglasses large enough to shield a minor principality, whilst being presented with a mother-of-pearl spoonful of caviar, a shaving of white truffle, and possibly a single artfully placed pea.
Not a bowl of peas, obviously. That would be vulgar. One pea. With provenance.
But do they really enjoy the salty little pop of caviar, the earthy fug of truffle, or the buttery softness of wagyu beef that has allegedly lived a more pampered life than most of us? Or do they simply eat these things because that is what the ultra-rich are supposed to eat?
I might be a tad unfair. Not every high-net-worth individual is sitting in Monaco trying to look moody over a langoustine. Some are perfectly happy with a toasted cheese sandwich, a bowl of pasta, or something involving ketchup that would make a private chef quietly question all their career choices. But there is, undeniably, a rich-person menu. And once you have seen enough luxury hotels, superyachts, private clubs and restaurants with lighting so flattering it could save a marriage, you start to notice that everyone is eating from the same gilded playbook.
Caviar. Oysters. Lobster. Truffles. Foie gras. Wagyu. Dover sole. Bluefin tuna. Sea urchin. Tiny vegetables with their own backstory. Chocolate desserts that arrive under a cloche of theatrical smoke. And, of course, something “foraged”, because nothing says extreme wealth like paying someone a small fortune to serve you weeds from a very specific hillside. If there is one thing I have learned from watching the luxury world at close quarters, it is that the rich and famous are not always the daring trendsetters we imagine. Quite often, they are the most obedient diners in the room.
They do not necessarily want the most exciting thing. They want the thing that tells everyone else they know what the most exciting thing is.
That is why the private chef was invented.
The chef, much like the sommelier, has the power to translate wealth into taste. They know when to serve Beluga-style caviar and when to switch to oscietra. They know which guest wants gluten-free, dairy-free, joy-free canapés, and which billionaire secretly wants chips. They know that the person making the most fuss about “clean eating” will, at 1am, require a club sandwich with extra mayonnaise and no witnesses.
Food at this level is rarely about hunger. Hunger is far too democratic. This is about status, ritual, nostalgia, control, theatre and occasionally, though not always, actual pleasure.
Take caviar. On paper, it is glamorous. In reality, it is fish eggs served in tiny quantities with all the ceremony of a diplomatic incident.
It must not touch metal. It must be served chilled, but not icy. It must come with blinis, crème fraîche, perhaps chopped egg and chives, though purists may clutch their pearls.
The real flex, of course, is not eating caviar. It is knowing which caviar to eat, where it came from, and being able to look mildly unimpressed by it.
Then there are oysters, the rich person’s edible gamble. Slippery, briny, expensive, and best eaten somewhere with a sea view, oysters are practically compulsory in places where linen napkins are folded into architectural shapes.
They are also quite funny when you think about it: people spending enormous sums to swallow something that looks like it has lost a fight with a rock pool. Still, with the right Champagne, the right company and the right amount of delusion, they remain one of life’s great luxuries.
Lobster has also clung on beautifully. It is dramatic, photogenic and expensive enough to feel celebratory. The ultra-rich tend not to want it drowned in garlic butter like the rest of us greedy mortals. They prefer it lightly poached, delicately dressed, perhaps with a foam, a bisque, a reduction, or some other cheffy flourish that means “we did not simply boil this and whack it on a plate”.
And then, of course, there is truffle. The edible perfume of wealth. Black truffle, white truffle, truffle butter, truffle pasta, truffle fries, truffle oil, truffle menus, truffle menus on truffle menus. The white truffle is the real show pony: shaved at the table with great reverence while everyone pretends not to notice the waiter calculating the price per flake. It is fabulous, yes, but truffle has also become so overused that half the luxury world now smells like an expensive sock drawer.
Foie gras remains one of the more controversial fixtures on the high-end menu, but it still appears with remarkable regularity in old-school luxury dining. It has that combination the rich often adore: history, indulgence, expense and just enough moral discomfort to make dinner feel faintly dangerous. Served as a terrine, pan-seared, tucked into a tasting menu, or paired with something sweet and sticky, it is one of those dishes that says: “Nobody came here for a salad.”
Wagyu beef is another modern luxury darling. It ticks every box. It has a story. It has grades. It has marbling. It has the kind of fat distribution that makes steak enthusiasts speak in hushed tones. The ultra-rich love a food item with a grading system because it allows them to order superiority by number. A5 Japanese wagyu is not just beef. It is beef with a passport, a pedigree and a publicist.
Then we have sushi. Not your supermarket lunchbox sushi, obviously. We are talking omakase. Counter seating. Knives that probably cost more than your first car. Fish flown in from Tokyo. Rice seasoned with the precision of a Swiss watch. The power move here is surrender. You do not order. The chef decides. This is very appealing to people who spend most of their lives controlling everything and everyone, because for two hours they can pretend to be humble in front of a very expensive piece of tuna.
Bluefin tuna, sea urchin and toro are the usual suspects, with uni – sea urchin gonads to you and me) being the ultimate love-it-or-pretend-to-love-it item. It tastes of the sea, custard, iodine and social pressure. Naturally, it is adored.
Italian food is where things get more interesting, because this is where the rich often stop pretending. Give them handmade pasta, a perfect tomato sauce, white truffle risotto, veal Milanese, sea bass baked in salt, or a bowl of spaghetti alle vongole eaten somewhere beautiful, and suddenly all the molecular nonsense can go and sit in the corner.
The truly wealthy may chase rare ingredients, but they also understand the power of simplicity, executed by someone else. A tomato from a specific farm in Sicily. Olive oil pressed by a family who look like they never used email. Pasta rolled by an 82-year-old nonna who is now, inevitably, booked out until 2029.
This is the new luxury: rustic, but curated; simple, but impossible to access; humble, but only after a concierge has made six calls.
The farm-to-table movement, once the preserve of earnest people in linen aprons, has been fully absorbed into the luxury machine. Now every carrot has a biography. Every egg has a lifestyle. Every menu wants you to know the name of the fisherman, the field, the goat, the moon phase and the exact emotional state of the sourdough starter.
Do the ultra-rich care? Some do. Many do not. But they like the idea of caring. It makes dinner feel less greedy.
The same goes for wellness food. The super-rich have embraced the kind of eating that sounds virtuous but still requires a private chef, a nutritionist and possibly a small laboratory. Plant-based tasting menus. Raw food retreats. Anti-inflammatory broths. Adaptogenic powders. Fermented everything. No sugar. No seed oils. No gluten. No dairy. No fun after 8pm.
Yet behind the scenes, the requests are often gloriously human. Pizza. Pasta. A proper burger. Roast chicken. Ice cream. Toast. Cake.
The thing about money is that it can buy any food in the world, but it cannot erase the memory of what you liked when you were eight.
This is where the famous differ slightly from the quietly wealthy.
Celebrities often eat for image. Billionaires often eat for convenience. Old money eats what it has always eaten and does not care whether you approve. New money eats labels. Tech money eats things in bowls. Fashion money eats almost nothing, but photographs it beautifully. Royal-adjacent money eats canapés standing up. Yacht money eats seafood, then complains it is too hot. Monaco money eats the menu equivalent of a diamond-encrusted watch: impressive, expensive and not always tasteful.
And then there are the private requests. These are always the best. The billionaire who wants baked beans flown in. The heiress who insists on a particular brand of crackers. The celebrity who demands an entirely vegan menu, then nicks someone else’s roast potatoes cooked in duck fat. The tycoon who could eat anywhere in the world but wants the same grilled fish every night at 7.15pm sharp.
Because for all the truffle shavings and caviar tins, food is emotional. Even for the ultra-rich. Especially for the ultra-rich, perhaps, because when everything is available, choice becomes oddly exhausting.
That is why the classic luxury foods never really disappear. Caviar will always be caviar. Oysters will always look decadent on crushed ice. Lobster will always make people feel as though something special is happening. Truffle will always be shaved over pasta by someone trying not to look too pleased with the bill. Wagyu will always make steak feel like an event. And a perfect plate of pasta will always have the power to silence even the most ridiculous table.
So, what do the ultra-rich and famous eat?
They eat rarity. They eat theatre.
They eat comfort disguised as sophistication. They eat whatever the chef recommends, whatever the host is serving, whatever photographs well, whatever signals taste, whatever reminds them of home, and occasionally whatever everyone else is pretending not to want.
In other words, much like the rest of us, they eat with their eyes, their egos, their memories and their appetites.
They just do it with better lighting, heavier cutlery and a much bigger bill.
