Magpie Cafe in Sacramento, California, goes through a 5-gallon bucket of honey about every three weeks, using it to sweeten its crispy pork belly and mix up batches of honey lemonade. It’s not cheap: Co-owner Janel Inouye pays 30% more for honey than she did five or six years ago. “I don’t know that I’ve seen anything that has been a sticker shock the way that we’ve seen honey jump,” she says. But the sweetener, for its flavor and complexity, is unmatched. She says she’d sooner pull the crispy pork belly from her menu than swap out the honey.
Photographer: Scott Semler for Bloomberg Businessweek. Prop Stylist: Maggie DiMarco