America’s most expensive restaurant sells takeaway sushi for $800 a box during lockdown

There’s a waiting list

Would you pay $800 for sushi? (Getty Images)

A global pandemic doesn’t mean you have to compromise on your standards when it comes to dining.

The US’s most expensive restaurant has started delivering takeaway boxes, each costing $800.

Aside from the price, the decadent sushi boxes are far more exclusive than your average takeaway, with only 20 available per week.

Prospective diners must even join a waiting list to be in with a chance of receiving the meal from three-Michelin-starred eatery Masa, whose physical restaurant in New York’s Time Warner Center has been closed since mid-March due to the coronavirus shutdown.

Customers must order via email, with those who are successful receiving their takeaway between 3.30-5pm.

Designed by head chef Masayoshi Takayama, the takeaway box feeds four people and includes slices of kanpachi, toro, salmon, akami tuna, tai sea bream and toro sashimi, plus 21g of Osetra caviar, a key component of Masa’s signature dish, the toro caviar.

It also comes with white rice, toasted bread, strips of nori (edible seaweed) and ginger and wasabi, all of which are displayed in chic wooden boxes.

Customers are advised to leave the box at room temperature for half an hour before eating their meal, to allow time for the flavours to blend.

According to Eater’s Gary He, who managed to order one of the boxes, diners have to craft the hand rolls themselves “without instructions from the Masa team”.

However, a sketch of the box of fish is included.

The experience has just one advantage over the dine-in experience at the restaurant (costing on average $1,300 for two): you can take photographs, which are prohibited at Masa.

So if nothing else, it’s a sure-fire Insta-hit.