Frankie McCoy: Burger me: how did Big Macs and ice cream become the new bling?

Lamborghini gridlocked in Knightsbridge? Cavalli Couture shrunk in the wash? Fear not: the latest way to show off your grossly overblown wealth in the most ostentatious manner possible is food. Diamond-smothered, designer-boxed and truffle-larded, the new wave of gastro-luxe dishes consists almost exclusively of a jarring conglomeration of bling ingredients, all signifiers of #richkidsofinstagram wealth.

Like Selfridges’s Billionaire’s Soft Serve in gold leaf and “edible diamonds” at £99 per dark chocolate-coated cone. So your mum probably won’t buy you a new one if you drop it.

Putting OTT ingredients together in the name of exhibiting tumescent wealth is hardly new — the Romans served roasted swan with pearl-studded peas 2,000 years ago — but it’s the Marie Antoinette-esque contempt of taking cheap dishes and pimping them that grates. Hot on the couture heels of Selfridges’ Soft Serve is McDonald’s collaboration with Julien Macdonald. Maccy D (the fashion designer) has created limited-edition diamanté-studded boxes to house his burger chain counterpart’s Signature Collection of brioche-bunned, made-to-order burgers across the UK.

Julien, bless him, has nothing to lose (this is the man who designed a collection of Müller Light pots in 2015), more tragic is that Everyman fast-food chain McDonald’s feels the need for a blinged-up “designer” range to compete in an already oversaturated gourmet burger market. Every couple of months, news of the latest “world’s most expensive burger” is stuffed down our gullets, the latest from Dutch chef Diego Buik with his £1,785 meat tower, with all the usual insanely expensive ingredients (Wagyu, foie gras, white truffle, caviar, yawn), plus a sauce made from 35 lobsters, Madagascan vanilla and saffron.

What is the point in this gastronomic supercar pile-up? Instagram, obvs. Why else does anyone under 30 with an iPhone do anything? As a 24-year-old restaurant junkie whose fingers twitch automatically for Instagram at any lull, I can barely contemplate eating dinner without whipping out my phone for an Insta-boast.

Food photos on social media easily outlike those of cars and you don’t have to actually expose your own non-supermodel face and body, as you would dressed in the sartorial equivalent of Beluga. And #foodporn is a more accessible way to show off to your followers: the man behind the Billionaire’s Soft Serve insists that it’s actually for “ordinary Londoners to share as a fun experience”.

“Share”, of course, meaning a photo on Instagram. Actually eating the thing is irrelevant. But in case you were wondering, that £99 dark chocolate gelato? Tastes like Bournville. If that floats your yacht.