Dish served up at city’s famous Grand Central Oyster Bar contains hidden treasure

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

A lucky diner has happened upon a pearl while eating an oyster dish at a famous New York city restaurant.

Rick Antosh was out to lunch with a friend and ordered his usual at the Grand Central Oyster Bar on 5 December— the $14.75 pan roast, a stew-like dish that includes six oysters.

The 66-year-old told the New York Post that he felt a small object rolling around his mouth after diving into the dish.

“For a fraction of a second, there was terror,” Antosh told the Post. “Is it a tooth? Is it a filling?”

Prada pulls figurines that resembled blackface from New York store Read more

The white nugget had a dark mark on it.

“When I saw the black dot, it really intrigued me ... is this something that broke off a utensil in the kitchen?”

Antosh, from New Jersey, said it turned out to be a pea-sized pearl.

“I’ve been here 28 years,” said Sandy Ingber, the restaurant’s executive chef. “This is only the second time I’ve seen this happen. And we sell over 5,000 oysters on the half shell every day.”

The occurrence of natural pearls in oysters is not well understood, but anecdotally it has been estimated at one in 10,000, according to Matthew W Gray, an oyster physiologist at the University of Maryland.

Antosh said he’s not yet sure what he’ll do with the find.

“I will definitely come back and try to find more pearls,” he said. “You never know.”