Move Over, $100 Lobster Salad. In the Hamptons, These Melons Cost $400.

New York|Move Over, $100 Lobster Salad. In the Hamptons, These Melons Cost $400.

It wasn’t even 8:30 on a recent morning when a shopper emptied his basket of dinner ingredients onto the counter of the Farm & Forage Market in Southampton: two king crab legs, two bags of frozen dumplings, two packages of ramen noodles and a bag of dried sea kelp.

The cash register rang up an already eye-popping tally before the customer realized he had forgotten the caviar. He tossed a jar of it onto the counter. The grand total was $1,860.

“I’ll put that on your tab, right?” asked Jonathan Bernard, owner of the tiny, tidy store. The shopper, a private chef who works in a home nearby, nodded and noted he would be back later for truffles.

In New York City, Zohran Mamdani just won the Democratic nomination for mayor after running on a platform that included city-run grocery stores to help struggling residents. Yet a $1,195 helicopter ride-away in the Hamptons, signs of extreme affluence have long been celebrated, at the Pilates studio where exercisers in designer athleisure compete for spots in $50 classes, on the beach where $20 smoothies can be delivered to sunbathers, on restaurant menus with $100 salads — and now at the grocery store.

This summer, an arms race among gourmet groceries has emerged with new specialty stores opening and longtime favorites expanding or adding new items — along with new, higher prices — to their shelves. Some of the big-ticket items top even the Hamptons’ much maligned $100-a-pound lobster salad, that debuted several years ago.

A top competitor is the specialty musk melon on offer at Farm & Forage. Imported from Japan, it is sprung from tenderly cared-for vines. It sells for as much as $400. (To the undiscerning eye, it looks identical to a regular, grocery store cantaloupe.)