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By Kim Hyun-cheol
Staff Reporter
A five-star hotel is getting away with the current beef issue using a unique solution ― an ultra luxury burger. Regardless of the current struggle sweeping the country, the special market for the select few with strong purchasing power is still active.
With tax and service charge added, one must pay over 180,000 won ($177.2) for a serving of the hamburger in question, named W "X" burger, in W Seoul Walkerhill's restaurant Kitchen.
The state-of-the-art burger is composed of prime Australian Wagyu beef topped with sauteed foie gras, with a whammy of sliced black truffles, on a bed of brioche bun, which is coupled with a piece of Canadian lobster tail.
"This burger made of extra rare ingredients can compare to any high-end gourmet dish," said Ciaran Hickey, chief chef of the hotel. ``I am sure this will offer an opportunity to change the prejudice of hamburgers as cheap food."
Once regarded only for those with colossal wealth, ultra-pricey goods are muscling their way into the territory of more ordinary means of purchase, for example, the home shopping channel.
GS Home Shopping launched Scarlet the Grace, a special prestige catalog, today. The quarterly publication will be sent to 50,000 lucrative customers.
``High-end customers are accounting for more and more of our sales, so we are intensifying VIP marketing plans to cater to the well-off,'' the retailer said.
In the nation's biggest department stores, last year's extraordinary hit items include Japanese mineral water, which costs 6,000 won ($5.9) per 0.5-liter bottle, a 1-million-won ($983.4) necktie and a 40,000-won grape.
This consuming bipolarization is not confined to South Korea with growing size of high-income classes at the turn of the century. Households with over $1 million rose by 7 percent from the previous year, a 2004 Merrill Lynch report says.
In line with the well-being trend, the tendency leads to a shift in an overall consuming pattern as more consumers nowadays adopt a spending strategy of differing choices by looking for either obviously upscale goods, or those with highly reasonable prices from the beginning for their satisfaction, according to the Economist, a renowned British magazine.
hckim@koreatimes.co.kr
