How to serve caviar

1. Keep it cold until the last moment

Caviar is at its best straight out of the cold. We hold ours between −2 °C and −4 °C and never freeze it, because freezing bursts the pearls and turns the texture to paste. At home, the tin belongs in the coldest part of the fridge — usually the back of the bottom shelf, not the door.

Open it when the table is ready, not while you are still cooking. If you are serving a larger tin, set it in a bowl of crushed ice so it stays cold through the course.

2. Never use a metal spoon

Steel reacts with the roe and leaves a faint metallic edge on the taste. Use mother-of-pearl, bone, horn or even plastic. This is the one rule that people skip and then wonder why the caviar tasted flat.

3. Put almost nothing with it

Good caviar is the dish, not the topping. The classics work because they are neutral:

• Blini — small, warm, unsweetened.
• Plain toast — thin, barely buttered, no crust.
• A warm boiled potato — underrated, and the best pairing on this list.
• Crème fraîche — if you like it, a smear. Never a spoonful.

Chopped onion and egg belong to a different, older tradition where the roe needed help. Ours does not.

4. Pour something dry

Chilled champagne or a clean, cold vodka. Both work because they are dry and get out of the way. Anything sweet fights the salt and the finish disappears.

How much per person

The honest answer is: more than you think, but start small.

• 10 g — a taste for one or two people.
• 30 g — a small dinner, two to four people tasting.
• 50 g — a proper course for two, or a taste for six.
• 100 g — a centrepiece for a table.

If it is your first tin, buy a small size of a better grade rather than a large tin of something ordinary. The difference between grades shows up in the first spoon.

Once it is open

Keep the tin covered and refrigerated and enjoy it within a few days. Caviar does not improve with time in the fridge, and it will not survive the freezer.

What to buy first

If you want the name everyone knows, Beluga is the showpiece. If you want the one most people end up preferring, Russian Sturgeon is mild, sweet and forgiving. If this is a first taste, Sterlet is the gentle way in — and the cheapest mistake you can make.

Not sure which grade you are actually paying for? Read caviar grades explained.