Mark Omidi unlocks the door of a nondescript suburban low-rise, and we slip into the windowless basement. The broad-shouldered owner of the Caviar Centre leads me to his stash—tins of Caspian caviar stacked in a small glass-fronted fridge. Although caviar can be made from the salted eggs of any sturgeon—the whiskered snout-nosed fish that dates from the Mesozoic Era and still swims through the Northern Hemisphere—three Caspian Sea dwellers yield the world’s most prized roe: beluga, sevruga and osetra.

Omidi pulls a one-kilogram tin of beluga out of the fridge and opens it. Briny sea air fills the room, the olfactory equivalent of a conch shell. He scoops out a few grams’ worth with a mother-of-pearl spoon. “Put it on the back of your hand first,” he counsels. “It’s too cold.” I obey, and seconds later the smooth grey-green eggs fill my mouth with a complex taste that’s “older than meat, older than wine,” to borrow the phrase from Lawrence Durrell.

Omidi is one of the major legal importers of caviar from the Caspian Sea. Still, his supply is small and getting smaller: only a few tins of osetra sit on the bottom shelf; that beluga may have been the last shipment to cross our borders. When I visited him in early October, the United States had just announced a suspension on imports of beluga, the caviar culled from Huso huso, the great Caspian sturgeon now on the brink of extinction. Canada has not made such a move—yet—but beluga, sevruga and osetra are becoming increasingly rare here. All three Caspian species are threatened by pollution and overfishing (the females must be killed to obtain the roe), but the beluga’s fate is the most uncertain: its population has dwindled by 90 per cent in the past two decades.

Since 2001, CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) has controlled the caviar trade by issuing fishing quotas to the five countries that border the Caspian Sea. As a result, prices have gone through the roof, and the black market has mushroomed (about four-fifths of the Caspian caviar trade is contraband). What was once a symbol of wealth and civility is fast becoming one of crass conspicuous consumption, the Hummer of the food world.

No one knows whether Canada will get another shipment in time for the holiday season (that depends on CITES), but if we do, prices could reach as high as $270 for 30 grams, double last year’s peak. Caviar Centre, Pusateri’s and Caviar Direct all have long lists of people willing to pay any price. “We get more calls for caviar now that we don’t have it,” says John Mastroianni, chancellor of the Pusateri’s Fine Foods empire.

Still, there are conscientious gourmets who choose not to consume the stuff, even when it is available. Two years ago, Jamie Kennedy joined the Endangered Fish Alliance and banished beluga from his menu; today, there are 70-odd Toronto chefs who have added their names to the boycott.

The good news is that there are dozens of other sturgeon species scattered around the globe, and the quality of farmed and wild North American sturgeon roe has improved immensely in the past few years. As farmed stocks begin to mature, they are yielding roe with more complex flavours; better processing methods (proper refrigeration, for instance) ensure cleaner and less muddied flavours. Although Omidi’s first love is sevruga, the Caspian shore native admits the farmed stuff “is so good now, a lot of people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.”

American chefs and food writers have gone gaga for Sterling Classic, a white sturgeon caviar from Stolt Sea Farms in Sacramento County, California. Its nutty taste and creamy texture have been likened to osetra’s. But even farmed sturgeon falls under the jurisdiction of CITES, so Stolt Sea Farms must jump through many bureaucratic hoops to export, and Sterling is not yet available here.

Wild Canadian sturgeon is our best alternative to Caspian. Several years ago, Kennedy avoided it because of its odd vinegar overtones. Now it’s the only caviar he serves. Caught in Lake Abitibi (Ontario’s fourth largest lake, it straddles the Quebec border), the roe he serves today has a lovely, clean flavour, good enough to pair simply with blini and sour cream. Like all fine caviar, it tastes more cured than salted. With medium-sized eggs and pale colouring, it looks a little like osetra, yet it’s a fraction of the price. But not for long: with restaurants and hotels discovering Abitibi as a Caspian alternative, the price has spiked to $100 for 100 grams—a 50 per cent increase in 18 months. And that’s as it should be. Wherever it hails from, caviar is a luxury that is meant for champagne occasions.