Restaurants across Wellington are preparing to plate up for the return of the Wellington On a Plate festival, which kicks off on Monday.
It’s the first time in three years that the month-long event will be going ahead without any major COVID-19-related disruptions. Last year was cut short as the country entered alert level 4 lockdown, forcing participating restaurants to discard of massive amounts of rotting food.
One of the stand-outs of this year's festival? Feast your eyes on this mouth-watering burger - that will set you back an eye-watering $185. If you think the burger must be made of gold to warrant such a price, well, you wouldn't be entirely wrong.
The Le Bourgeoisie Burger is the creation of Jardin Grill executive chef, Royxeenn Giam.
"In the burger, we have Japanese Wagyu A5 patty, oscietra caviar and Chatham Island crayfish," Giam told Newshub.
The burger has caused quite a stir online due to its price, but Giam said there's more to it than the cost.
"After three years of COVID-19, we wanted to do something out of the box and do something fun."
This luxury burger is one of many dishes to feature in the Wellington On a Plate Festival this year, but with the cost of living sizzling hot right now, will Kiwis want to fork out?
"No, not even if I won the lottery I probably wouldn't," one Wellingtonian said.
"I probably would just try it out once."
"It's a bit of a push to buy even a $5 McDonald's burger," said another.
The cost of living crisis is front of mind for Wellington On a Plate CEO Sarah Meikle, who insists there's something for all budgets.
"We have free events, we have pay-on-consumption events, and we also have a large number of events that are reasonably priced," Meikle said.
"We're really excited to get started this year, on time, on schedule, and for the industry, it's a really important time."
The festival officially kicks off on Monday, but you'll have to wait until August 12 to try the Le Bourgeoisie Burger.
