You'll Drop Mad Cash on Australian Truffles at Per Se

As we all learned in ninth grade earth science, it's now WINTER, or close to it, in the Southern Hemisphere, even though it's nearly SUMMER here in New York — crazy, right? That means it's black truffle season in Australia and that also means we'll start seeing those black truffles in certain fancy Northern Hemisphere restaurants in the coming weeks. Thomas Keller's service-included Per Se is one of the first to debut them this year, shaving the intoxicating fungi over risotto or hand cut tagliatelle.

Per Se is charging the same as last year for these pricey fungi — $125 in the a la carte salon or as a supplement to the chef's tasting. And since this is the first time the three Michelin-starred restaurant is serving Australian black truffles since it hiked the price of the dinner menu to $310, let's take a look at precisely how much one can spend at Per Se when all the options are tacked on.

Supplements can vary from day to day, but frequent offerings have included foie gras ($40), Tsar Imperial caviar ($75), Wagyu beef ($100) and of course, the truffles ($125). So if you order the Australian shavings your solo dinner with tax will run $474. Add-on all the other options and your dinner for one will now cost $708, or $1,045 after wine pairings, with a suggested price of $310. That's likely more than you'd spend at Saison, Meadowood, Joel Robuchon in Vegas or virtually any restaurant in American other than Masa, which, incidentally, is located just next door to Per Se in the Time Warner Center — expensive address, right?

To find out exactly how much you might spend at Per Se this summer, consult our interactive online chart below. Think of the upper limit for two ($2,090) as more of a worst case scenario than a prediction of what you might drop on a date or business dinner, because if you're wise, you'll negotiate the wine pairings down to a more reasonable price, which the sommeliers will happily do. And hopefully both of you will share the truffles (or Wagyu, or foie), rather than double down on those luxuries, because let's be reasonable, right? Mobile users: click here for the interactive chart.