Caviar Is Suddenly Everywhere. Now It’s on Our Favorite Desserts.

An air of exclusivity has long surrounded caviar, a far cry from the days when the delicacy was so cheap that bars gave it out like peanuts to encourage customers to drink.

But caviar has been returning to its humble roots as it glistens atop doughnuts, tacos, and fried chicken. In December, Rihanna shared an Instagram video of herself putting the salt-cured sturgeon eggs on chicken nuggets. A couple of weeks later, Hailey Bieber posted a picture of caviar covering her In-N-Out burger.

It’s not just celebrities getting in on the trend. Business is booming, bumps are flowing with Gen Z and millennials, and chefs are shaking off the shackles of blinis and putting caviar on just about everything — including dessert.

What fueled the caviar boom?

Once mostly confined to the menus of fine-dining restaurants, caviar became more accessible during the pandemic as retailers turned their attention directly to consumers online.

“All these purveyors started selling to the public during COVID to literally just survive, and I think they did a great job promoting caviar,” chef Ki Kim, who runs Restaurant Ki in Los Angeles, told Business Insider. “Now, there’s a brand-new market, and we’re naturally going in that phase where the more people know about caviar, the more people demand caviar and want caviar.”

US companies are already seeing success. Eve Lin, the cofounder of Astrea Caviar, told BI that her sales have increased by 8% from a quarter million since the California-based company launched in 2019. Meanwhile, Danielle Zaslavskaya, whose family owns Marky’s Caviar, said the company has seen a significant rise in sales from Gen Z customers.

The demand is also partly fueled by TikTok and Instagram, where caviar bumps are perfectly timed with the rise of trends like quiet luxury.

“Caviar has been around forever, but I think social media has helped its popularity in the last few years,” said Liwei Laio, who owns the LA seafood market Joint Seafood. “It’s drawn into that image of splurging.”

E.J. Lagasse has seen that firsthand. His salmon cheesecake, which comes with a thick layer of Petrossian caviar on top, is now the most Instagrammed dish at Emeril’s in New Orleans. The 21-year-old chef wanted to make a statement when he reimagined the 1989 recipe by his legendary father, Emeril Lagasse.

“I showed my dad and said, ‘I think we should put all this caviar on,'” Lagasse told BI. “He was like, ‘Are you sure about that?’ Then he ate it and was like, ‘This is amazing. Put it on the menu.'”

Caviar’s viral effect on social media is similar to what chef Guy Meikle has seen at Heritage, his restaurant and caviar bar in Chicago.

“We see people coming in for happy hour and having caviar in an affordable way, and that begets the next person feeling comfortable to do it, and then the next person,” said Meikle, who offers a $15 shot and bump deal.

“It’s the onion-ring effect,” he added. “Once you see a table with a big stack of onion rings, you kind of want that, too.”

Caviar with a side of fast food

The rules of caviar were once simple. Restaurants served it chilled with a mother-of-pearl spoon, plopped on a blini, and topped with crème fraîche.

“If caviar on chicken nuggets was on a menu 10 years ago, people would think that chef was crazy,” Liao said.

However, in the kitchen, chefs could play with extra caviar as they pleased. Liao said they often used it to elevate their quick and cheap dinner breaks.

“Pretty much everything fried can always use salt, so essentially, you can put caviar on everything fried, and it’ll taste good,” he said. “We were putting caviar on our McDonald’s 10 years ago. That’s exactly how it came about in the kitchen for chefs.”

Now, more restaurants and retailers are pairing the salt-cured eggs with familiar or nostalgic dishes, hoping to spawn a new generation of caviar lovers.

Zaslavskaya was dubbed the “Queen of Caviar” on TikTok as she shared videos of herself eating pizza and Doritos with her family’s product, hoping to demystify caviar to the masses.

Ali and Marai Bolourchi, who own Tsar Nicoulai Caviar, helped launch the trend of bringing caviar to fast-food restaurants after posting a tin of their California product over a cup of ice at In-N-Out.

Ali Bolourchi told BI that his wife helped him see that caviar could be enjoyed beyond the boundaries of his Russian and Iranian heritage.

“I was like, ‘Oh my God, my ancestors would roll over in their graves,” he said with a laugh. “But if you give a delicious product to somebody who doesn’t have a tunnel they have to force the experience through, it actually becomes much more approachable.”

The sweetest surprise

Now that caviar with fried chicken is ubiquitous, it’s time for the delicacy to find a new frontier. Many are realizing that sturgeon eggs go great with dessert, too.

Liwei helped start a trend of topping basque cheesecake with caviar, a combo he said worked so perfectly that David Chang was jealous.

“When he had the caviar cheesecake for the first time, he was angry at me,” Liwei added. “He was mad he didn’t figure it out himself.”

Chefs are realizing that caviar is also a natural topping for ice cream. The cold temperature allows each pearl to get harder, adding a new level of texture.

At Restaurant Ki, Kim serves caviar with ice cream made from grilled Korean lettuce. The dish is an homage to the moment he fell in love with caviar — when he tried it with ice cream at the Michelin-starred Atera in New York City.

Meikle serves caviar with Ruffles Cheddar and Sour Cream ice cream at his Chicago restaurant, while the Bolourchis recently partnered with Humphry Slocombe Ice Cream in San Francisco to offer Tsar Nicoulai caviar on top of Tahitian Vanilla.

“I had the chance to watch people enjoy this dessert with caviar on it, and they’re always so mindblown,” Marai told BI. “They’re like, ‘Visually, this doesn’t make sense, but on the palate it does.'”

Where will caviar go next? The possibilities feel limitless.

“We find it very inspiring that caviar is moving to a younger generation,” Ali Bolourchi said. “I think the future of caviar is in good hands.”