The Los Angeles Restaurant That Sells A Fish Sandwich For Nearly $100

While fast food fish sandwiches can certainly hit the spot, the dish also lends itself to gourmet interpretations — and few restaurants apply a maximalist approach quite like Los Angeles' Daybird. The eatery primarily focuses on Nashville-style fried chicken inflected with Szechuan seasonings. However, it also draws widespread social media attention for its ritzy fish sandwich, priced at $80.

The lavish build centers around a generously sized, thickly battered fillet of fried cod. When topped with the standard yuzu tartar fixing, the fish sandwich sells for $20, but you can optionally upgrade to a $60 order of aged sturgeon caviar tartar sauce, made using a tin of the Los Angeles-based Astrea brand. Visually, it does add up to a stunning sight: a beautiful golden-brown fillet, smothered in a caviar-speckled condiment, all between two fluffy pieces of bread.

Reviewers love the taste of both versions of the sandwich. "That's seasoned extremely well and it's very flaky," one TikTok user said about the $20 standard in a video with over 2 million likes. "The caviar was [jam-packed] and oozing out of the sandwich. It tasted creamy and zesty," wrote a Yelp reviewer. However, some believe the caviar doesn't actually add much to the experience — mostly just a burst of saltiness — meaning for budget-conscious foodies, the dish can be enjoyed at a more modest price point.

While it's still often paired with Champagne in upscale settings, it feels like caviar is now everywhere, and on everything. Whether it's getting scooped onto a potato chip or over fast food fried chicken, the culinary world has embraced the contrast of a high-end topping with an everyday bite. Daybird's rendition falls right in line with such trends.

The restaurant's ambience also fits this trend of casual decadence. Expectedly, a nearly $100 fish sandwich incites expectations of a lavish environment to match — a fancy seafood restaurant or cocktail bar, for example. Yet Daybird is instead a cute, but no-frills eatery: Food comes out on paper-topped reusable trays, and there's no seating. In fact, plenty of folks eat Daybird's sandwich outside, using a to-go container.

The rest of the eatery's menu fits the approachable vibe, too. You can grab a chicken sando or a four-piece set of tenders for around the $15 mark. So whether you go for the basics or upgrade to the splurge-worthy caviar sandwich won't make or break the experience.