Sometimes, no matter how smart, connected, and well-resourced you are, you simply need an expert—and not just any expert, but the rarefied insider whom other specialists call when they need help.

Luckily Robb Report has our own highly curated directory of heavy hitters across categories: the Masters of Luxury.

This month, it’s Ian Purkayastha. As a teen, the Regalis Foods founder pooled his savings to buy a kilo of black truffles from France after falling in love with the delicacy at a restaurant near his childhood home in Arkansas. He turned that single foray into a full-time business that caused him to defer college and move to the New York tri-state area for a better critical mass of customers. (He tells the full tale in his memoir, Truffle Boy: My Unexpected Journey Through the Exotic Food Underground.) Recently, he has diversified into supplying an array of high-end ingredients, and his firm is on speed dial with the foremost stateside chefs.

Have a conundrum you’d like to see solved? Email askrobb@robbreport.com.

The Expert

Name: Ian Purkayastha
Occupation: Truffle connoisseur
HQ: Brooklyn, N.Y.
Specialty: Delivering the best ingredients to America’s top chefs

The Big Question

I’m a huge fan of both truffles and caviar, and I’d like to eat them more at home. What do I need to know about those ingredients to use them well in the kitchen? 

If you want your chef to add truffle to the menu when it’s in season, remind them to squeeze any tuber, gently, before buying it. “It should really have the firmness of a ripe avocado,” Purkayastha says. “If there’s any squishy sponginess, that’s typically a sign that the truffle has gone soft.” Make sure, too, that the aroma is “complex and earthy and gassy.” If you score a prime specimen, don’t follow that widely held misconception that storing truffles in rice extends their lifespan. “It sucks all the life and moisture and flavor out of them and turns them into truffle jerky.” Better to wrap truffles in a dry paper towel or two before placing that parcel in a glass jar in the fridge to maintain quality and prolong use. And even if you follow those maxims, white truffles—always a garnish, never a cooked ingredient—won’t last beyond five days, while black truffles can be edible for about 10 days at most.

As for caviar, make sure to avoid the easy rookie mistake: heat damage. Regalis stores it at 28 degrees to preserve its freshness. “When they’re out of temp, then they can get a really undesirable, cheesy flavor profile,” he says. Serving it any way other than straight up? Swirl it into a sauce à la minute, at most—heat will burst the eggs and reduce texture contrast. Watch, too, for the source: In the past 10 years, China has begun to dominate the global market via huge industrial farms that churn out caviar en masse. “It has a firm texture, but it’s a little one-dimensional from a flavor perspective,” Purkayastha says. “We carry it as a workhorse budget offering, but we have several producers in Europe we like to promote a little more.” Consider, instead, the Netherlands, where producers are more likely to feed fish with shrimp and other natural feed, rather than the cat-food-like pellet that predominates in those large Chinese farms.

Speed Round

What’s the food experience you are craving? It’s on my hit list, but I haven’t actually been. I would love to go to Les Grands Buffets in Narbonne, France [an all-you-can-eat gourmet buffet].

Best way to eat a truffle? Keep it classic: A soft poached egg is a neutral canvas. Just the egg, truffle, and some salt.

Up-and-coming product to watch? Golden chicken. The majority of chicken in America is highly processed and cleaned in a chlorine bath. We source a heritage breed in Lancaster, Penn., that has beautiful, bright-yellow fat that’s 100 percent corn-fed. There’s just a lot of complexity of flavor.

An essential kitchen tool most people won’t own? A handheld truffle slicer from Microplane, in Arkansas.

How to complain with flair at a restaurant when things go awry? I typically never complain. It’s bad form unless it’s totally inedible.

Should we ever consider buying truffles from farms and countries outside Europe’s traditional areas? The Chilean truffles are amazing, as they’re the same winter black-truffle variety found wild in Spain and France… They’re fresher, too, because of the sheer proximity, so we can import them in a fraction of time.

Which restaurant ranking system should we trust the most? I don’t think there’s a fair ranking system in today’s environment. 50 Best, for example, requires fully comped meals by all inspectors, so only restaurants with deep pockets can afford to do that.

Either | Or

More versatility—it has a lot more applications.

Without it, no one would be eating Californian.

More modern. It tastes better because of the texture.

Seeing other diners on their phone during a meal takes away from what makes a dining experience special.

It’s an old-world approach, and I like the theatrics of it.

More complexity and flavor—Japanese Wagyu is a little bit one-dimensional.

Oxtail is one of my favorites.

Deft but silent—you’re dining out to enjoy the company you’re eating with.