Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Edible gold leaf isn't so expensive that it would be cost-prohibitive to do for an upscale pizza place... the stuff I have costs about $1/sheet at retail, so maybe it would work out to $3-4 extra per pie, assuming a restaurant bought it at wholesale and did the usual restaurant markup. It'd be like designer vodka... something you order to celebrate something rather than for the flavor. However, I think it would look nicer if the gold sheets were cut into smaller pieces and scattered about more evenly. There are actually shakers available that might work well on the line. If you haven't worked with gold leaf much, it's tricky to get used to because the gold leaf wants to stick to itself as soon as something warm, like a hand, touches it. My first couple of times using it wasted a lot and the gold looked much smaller than it started out. I made this dessert with edible gold leaf (kinpaku). It's more about visual drama than anything else, and the technique is used in desserts in Japan, India, and France quite often.