This loaf of rye bread is selling for $60 in New York. Is it worth it?

Rye opened in Manhattan last month, offering a titular loaf made from water, imported rye flour and salt. The fourth ingredient, according to the bakery, is time. But while some people have said the price tag is exorbitant, others seem happy to pay.

Online commenters decry high price for single loaf, but others seem happy to pay

Padraig Moran · CBC Radio

· Posted: Oct 09, 2026 2:14 PM EDT | Last Updated: October 9

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LISTEN | 'There were people who were coming in and buying 10 loaves':

The Current7:56Would you buy a $60 loaf of bread?

A bakery in New York is selling a loaf of rye bread for $60 US ($85 Cdn). But while many have criticized the price as exorbitant, a food critic who tried it says it tells a more complex story.

“Is the bread delicious? The answer is yes. Is the bread worth it? [That] I think is a much more complicated question,” said Elazar Sontag, a food critic for the Washington Post.

Austrian baker Martin Auer opened Rye in Manhattan last month, making the titular loaf from water, imported rye flour and salt. The fourth ingredient, according to the bakery, is time: 24 hours for the dough to rest, ferment and develop, then 70 minutes in the oven. The loaf weighs about 1.5 kilograms, and is also sold in smaller portions.

Auer’s family have been in the bread business since 1936, and offer the same loaf in Vienna for a fraction of the price, just over €14 ($22 Cdn). The New York loaf’s price tag caught the attention of many on social media, with one TikToker describing Auer as either “a criminal or an evil genius” for capitalizing on New York’s taste for hype. 

The Current contacted Rye with questions, but did not receive a response. The bakery previously told Sontag that the New York pricing reflects rent, wages and transportation, as well as costs related to development, design, packaging and the work of making the bread itself. 

Sontag tried the loaf and wrote about it in the Washington Post. He spoke to The Current’s Matt Galloway about what he thought. Here is part of their conversation.

I'm really glad to have you here, in part because you have had the bread. What is it like?

I can confirm the tab, it is very expensive. Even knowing exactly what I was going for, when I saw that number come up on the little screen before I tapped my phone, it is kind of an eyebrow-raising moment.

The bread itself is delicious … people aren't really talking about the taste of the bread because to most people it's kind of beside the point. But if what you really are wondering is, is the bread delicious? The answer is yes. Is the bread worth it? [That] I think is a much more complicated question.

Part of it is the experience of going to the bakery, right? You said it's like an Apple store in some ways?

It has this very stern, but also sort of aspirational feel that I think will be familiar to anyone who shops at designer clothing stores … [or] people who buy their technology from Apple.

Apple similarly is sort of going for a certain kind of aspirational living, very clean, very minimal. It's not necessarily what you expect from a bakery. There's so many kinds of signifiers in there about lifestyle, right? You feel like you're walking into a place that's telling you how you should want to live, as opposed to necessarily just selling you a loaf of bread.

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Who is buying a $60 loaf of bread?

Well, the short answer is, at the moment, a lot of people, because of this discourse and how far it has travelled.

But I actually asked one of the employees … and he said that a lot of people were coming just because they were curious. But he also said that it should be noted it's in a very wealthy New York neighbourhood. And that there were people who were coming in and buying 10 loaves. Now, that's about $600 of bread.

The owner has admitted that the same loaf sells for much less in Austria. You heard one of those people from social media at the beginning. Is this person a criminal or an evil genius?

I mean, probably neither. I think really this person is sort of just fitting into the long and storied tradition of kind of outlandish New York businesses.

I think the idea that people have latched onto — that this is really a sign of some new awful era of New York and a time when Americans can just sort of be hoodwinked and cheated — there's something there. I think the way that social media amplifies these sorts of conversations can make our culture feel very, very bleak.

Rye bakery in New York. Food critic Elazar Sontag says the store has a 'very stern but also sort of aspirational feel.' (Submitted by Elazar Sontag)

But, you know, as I pointed out in my column when I was writing about the bread, New York is a city of ridiculous contradictions. The idea that a $60 loaf of bread is so novel in a city where you could get a sushi dinner for one that costs a thousand? It's a little silly to me. Of course, the bread is also totally ridiculous, but I don't know that it's an indicator of some evil genius. It's certainly not criminal, as long as people are willing to sign up for the bread. What's he doing wrong? I mean, it's a little outlandish, but how outlandish is it for New York?

Bloomberg called this a K-shaped loaf of bread, pointing to the idea of the K-shape economy, which has this huge gap between the rich and the poor. What do you make of that? The bread is stamped, so if you buy the loaf of bread, everybody knows that it's not just a normal loaf of bread — this is the $60 loaf. Is this just about conspicuous consumption?

The shortest, shortest answer is probably yes. But it's not about the loaf of bread and I think people understand … that the loaf of bread is a symbol, right.

People are getting on the internet and saying, I think one of the most common lines right now is: bread is supposed to be a food of the working class, and the poor. It's flour and water — and how are we making something that is about access and about nourishment a symbol of this just sort of disgusting, offensive level of wealth. I take that, but I think it's important to remember that this is not a bakery that dropped into a working-class, under-resourced neighbourhood, and now suddenly the only option people have is this $60 bread.

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I think that the tension and the anxiety is that it does point to something very real in America, certainly very real in New York, about this K-shaped economy. It's ostentatious, it comes in this bag that's printed with big blocky RYE letters. And you know, it does feel like a status symbol, and I think it does say something a little foreboding about our culture right now, that bread is a status symbol. But avocado toast was a status symbol 10 or 15 years ago.

What do you do with a $60 loaf of bread? Do you make avocado toast with it? Is it a sandwich? Do you just dip it in olive oil?

You savour it … you eat it very slowly.

Audio produced by Amanda Grant. Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.