A lover of caviar, Oksana Dragun wants to break misconceptions of the world’s luxury food with Royal Caviar Club, a leading caviar seller.
Oksana Dragun still remembers her first taste of caviar at just five years old. Raised in Novosibirsk, Siberia in Russia’s chilly north, to caviar trading parents, the fish roe was intoxicating to her palate.
“I remember [caviar] being so mysterious. It was round, salty, and popped in your mouth with a huge gush of umami,” Oksana recounts. “Since that day, I have been passionate to continue in this space to promote caviar.”
When Oksana emigrated to Hong Kong a decade ago, she found the quality of caviar to be quite poor and produce highly limited. With her husband, she co-founded the Royal Caviar Club to remedy this issue and educate a luxury-loving Hong Kong on the wonders of roe.
In eyeshot of the ICC, Tseun Wan, Sun Yat Sen Park, and the undulating hills of Kowloon, Royal Caviar Club’s office takes up a space on the 29th floor of a gray office block. Inside, some of Hong Kong’s most luxurious caviar can be found, ranging in price from HKD700 to HKD50,000.
“Caviar is exactly like wine,” Oksana says. Like wine, caviar operates in the same culinary sphere: you have New World and Old World, vintages, a focus on aftertaste, visual, olfactory, and gustatory notes, and techniques on how to farm it.
“Caviar is a lifestyle. We are creating different tools, moments, and accessories to allow people to enjoy life and elevate your experiences.”
Seven years ago, Oksana began Hong Kong’s first caviar experience at Royal Caviar Club to provide much-needed education for caviar, often beset with stereotypes or misconceptions. “We found that people lacked knowledge about caviar. Sure, it is so trendy, popular, and is everywhere, but we wanted to provide answers for people’s questions.”
“What is a good caviar? Where does caviar come from? How do you source it? Why does farming caviar matter? Just like wine, you have different varieties of caviar: strong, creamy, briny, umami, complex, oceanic, sweet.”
At their office, events, private gatherings, and restaurant collaborations, caviar tastings highlight some of the world’s most rare varieties of caviar from Bordeaux, France, Zhejiang, China, and Iran.
One may assume caviar is uniformly dark-green and salty. Royal Caviar Club’s caviar ranges in colours from gray to black to brown amber, and even golden yellow, carrying opulent flavour notes of seaweed, sea salt, champagne, and pepper. Oksana wants to present the plethora of caviar beyond the expensive price tags found in fancy restaurants.
Caviar products sold on Royal Caviar Club’s website are fit for the customers needs and wants. Direct-to-customer sales accounts for 50% of the businesses revenue, whilst the other 50% relates to trade with Hong Kong’s fine-dining restaurants.
“What many people [in Hong Kong] don’t understand is that you can have a caviar variety perfect for food, eating on its own, paired with alcohol, or reserved for big celebrations.” Just like wine, “we all love it, but what is good to you is not necessarily good to me.”
Since 2019, the founding year of Royal Caviar Club, Oksana has embraced her misconception-busting duty. “Caviar does not have to be expensive for you to enjoy it! You can have a more casual caviar and still afford the experience. If you can afford one bottle of wine, you can definitely afford caviar.”
In 1998, the independent Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cities) instituted a ban on exporting wild caviar from Russia, China, Iran, Bulgaria, and a host of central Asian and eastern European countries. Today, “the beauty of caviar has meant that farms can be found everywhere.”
Whilst a majority of caviar comes from China, Oksana estimates more than 75% of the world’s caviar originates from the mainland, caviar can be also farmed and imported from Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Indonesian, Germany, the Netherlands, and other countries.
“Just like vineyards, you aren’t comparing apples to apples, rather, looking at the history of the farms, the grading of caviar, its size, texture, and flavour to ensure you farm and import the A grade.”
The A grade caviar Oksana stocks is sold to top restaurants in Hong Kong, such as Amber, Octavium, Estro, and Embla.
Is caviar still relevant? Yes, Oksana believes. “Caviar is still seen as a luxury item so, in the long run, I think people will still come back to the authenticity of caviar as they look for real experiences.”
She says that the trends of putting caviar on everything, be that pizza, fried chicken, or ice cream, may not last, but the status and sophistication of caviar will continue to bring people back as caviar stands as “the definition of luxury.”
Oksana enjoys her caviar paired with Beluga vodka, on its own, or caviar mooncakes, a trend Royal Caviar Club set in 2023 to produce one of Hong Kong’s more unique Mid Autumn offerings.
“We don’t just follow trends, we create them, from the first caviar cake to the world’s first caviar mooncake and caviar ring.”
Buy your next caviar treat and enjoy the luxuries of life at Royal Caviar Club’s website.
