They are on ice in more ways than this. The collection of glistening grey-black sturgeon roe -- costing $260, $210 and $180 respectively for a tiny 30-gram tin -- are among the last his patrons will see for a long time.

With the kind of timing that smacks of a global New Year's cleanse, the United Nations issued a ban Jan. 3 on the export of wild sturgeon from the Caspian and Black Seas. Until caviar-producing countries can provide more information on their conservation methods, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES) will issue no new export quotas.

"I only have one tin of beluga left," Singh says. "I have about two or three sevruga and about a half-dozen oscietre."

Yet the Toronto restaurateur sees the bright side of the ban.

Singh is happily exploring a range of intriguing caviar alternatives, especially new varieties of smoked salmons, smoked trout and mackerel as nibbling companions to the 57 kinds of vodka he carries.

"I could eat this stuff every day and not get tired of it," he says, chewing on a piece of salmon jerky.

His patrons seem to agree. There has been no run on his remaining Caspian stock. "The market is so specific," he says. "Less than 5 per cent of our customers like it."

He offers me what will probably be my first and last taste of the illicit treat. As a fan of the cheap farmed salmon roe used in sushi, I'm worried that he is wasting a precious resource on my palate. But beluga is divine -- silky and delicate with a light taste of ocean. Next up are the sevruga and oscietre, two other sturgeon varieties that get saltier and brinier as their price descends marginally. They are a perfect match for a blini with a dollop of sour cream.

While I'm letting the high-end eggs sit on my tongue, Singh sends a dish piled with pale yellow Canadian whitefish caviar over to a regular. Having shared a jar of it over the weekend with my family, I know it is mild with a fun crunchy pop to it.

Singh asks his regular what he thinks.

"Too salty."

"That's good, you'll drink more," he says.

He tells me with a shrug that most people can take or leave caviar, high- or low-end. "We'll do a corporate party with caviar and spring rolls," he says. "The spring rolls go first."

For fence-sitters, skyrocketing prices and dwindling supply had already made Caspian and Black Sea caviar a moot proposition. At Caviar Direct at Toronto's St. Lawrence Market, owner Anthony Rommens says he began diversifying long before the ban.

"It's the most unethical business and I'm an ethical guy," says Rommens, who had stopped carrying Caspian eggs, partly because of uncertainty over provenance and quality.

His high-end Canadian replacement, Abitibi Lake sturgeon caviar, is also in short supply, and it's all but spoken for at $300 per 100-gram tin. "This is all I'll have for the next four months," he says.

He's also big on the pale Canadian Northern whitefish caviar, which I bought at $40 for a 125-gram jar, and Hudson Bay caviar, which is "a bit more complex" and pricey. He's also stocking a wide range of smoked salmon options.

Patrick McMurray, owner of Toronto's Starfish, admits he's a big fan of the quotidian salmon roe. "I like a bigger flavour -- I love salmon roe. It's my favourite thing. And quite plentiful."

He and his chef Martha Wright have never been big on Caspian Sea caviar since they are key players in the activist Endangered Fish Alliance. "The sturgeon is in danger," he says. "We have to be careful."

He's keen on a caviar-like Spanish product imported by a Canadian company called Brunello Imports: Avruga, which plays off the three famous caviar names. It's smoked herring shaped into pellets and dyed with squid ink. Brunello owner Oscar Savona says a new preservative-free version has been available for about three months.

At a 10th the cost of caviar, it's texturally accurate and has a clean oceany taste. Put it in a pasta cream sauce and dare your guests to call your bluff.

Over at fine-food purveyors Pusateri's, manager John Mastrianni is going with French sturgeon caviar, which costs $100 for 30 grams. He staged a taste test with 20 loyal customers who gave it a thumbs up. Deep black, and rich and fatty, it feels luxurious at about a third of the price of Caspian.

"It's the closest thing in the market," he says. "Nothing else comes close."

Mastrianni says he's already been approached by sellers of questionable caviar stocks. "They haven't had it for years, and when the market started to close, they had it."

Al Tehrani of Vancouver's International House of Caviar says if the ban isn't lifted, consumers should be suspicious of Caspian Sea caviar still on sale by March. He got his last shipment December 23. "It will keep three or four months, as long as it's untouched in a cooler between minus 1 and plus 3."

If you buy caviar and store it at home in the fridge, he says, you have to eat it within a week to 10 days, and immediately once it's opened.

Amid this mild sense of doom and wait-list panic, most foodies say their knickers aren't in a knot.

For some, caviar lies in the shark-fin soup category of luxury; it's chic because it's rare and costly. Elton John, for instance, is said to have served caviar and chips as an appetizer for several hundred guests at his wedding last month.

Dick Snyder, a foodie and publisher of Toronto's City Bites magazine, will wax on about artisanal cheese, Parma ham and wine, but says he's never been particularly moved by the little unfertilized eggs.

"It's really more of a high-level consumption, Cristal-drinking, bottle-service kind of thing," Snyder says. "I've never even seen caviar at a party, or indeed anywhere besides Pravda in New York -- where the people I was with just ordered it because they were on an expense account."