Most Expensive Restaurants in the World
The average cost of a dinner date in America costs $102. That's for two meals, a bottle of wine, and two movie tickets. At some restaurants, the absolute lowest cost of a dinner is $200. And that’s just for one person.
These are the most expensive restaurants in the world, and they feature some of the world’s best chefs and most ostentatious locations. If you want an unforgettable dining experience, whether it’s from sticker shock or the quality of the meal, try booking a room at one of these restaurants.
And keep in mind, these are just base cost prices (some of them even charge for water). Many prices can double or triple with drinks, upgrades, tips and tax.
Maison Pic
Location: Valence, France
Cuisine: French
Price: $200-$365
Note: We compared the prices of single fixed-price menus across two dozen restaurants worldwide. We’re not counting made-for-publicity meals like the $5,000 burger or diamond-studded sushi. This evens the playing field, as many restaurants only offer one-menu meals.
Bottom Line: Maison Pic
Maison Pic has remained a family restaurant for generations and has maintained at least one Michelin star since 1934. Its current owner and head chef, Anne-Sophie Pic, is the only female chef in France to hold three Michelin stars.
The menus at Maison Pic begin at 180 euros for the very light discovery menu, then increase to 280 euros for the harmony and 380 euros for the essential menus. Add an extra $165 or so for wine pairing.
A snippet of a review from Andy Hayler: "Langoustine tails were cooked a la plancha with a marinade of yuzu, honey, angelica and kororima (an Ethiopian spice in the ginger family known as false cardamom) that caramelises when cooked, the shellfish served in a dashi sauce."
The French Laundry
Location: Yountville, California
Cuisine: French
Price: $325
Bottom Line: The French Laundry
There are two set nine-course menus at The French Laundry, a meat-and-seafood tasting and a vegetable tasting. Both will set you back $325 (tip included) and more if you want extras.
For example, the mac and cheese with parmesan mousseline and shaved white truffles costs an extra $175. "Upgrades" at $100 a pop are also available for expensive dishes like a Wagyu steak. You can bring your own wine for a $150 cork fee.
Aragawa
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Cuisine: Steak
Price: $330
Bottom Line: Aragawa
Aragawa is considered one of the most expensive steakhouses in the world.
The prix-fixe menu here costs 36,300 yen ($328) per person — tax and service charge included.
That includes a main course, salad, appetizer, a sample tasting, dessert, and coffee or tea.
Noma
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
Cuisine: New Nordic
Price: $350
Bottom Line: Noma
One of the world’s most notable restaurants is Noma, a Copenhagen-based eatery that serves some truly unconventional foods. All the food is foraged near the restaurant — and if that means the moss is looking good this season, then it’s going in a recipe.
The dining experience takes around three hours and includes 20 courses. Here are some things a Business Insider journalist was served at Noma:
- A plant in a pot with edible soil, radishes and a hidden straw for hidden soup.
- Quail eggs with vegetarian chorizo made up of rose hips and berries, served in a straw nest.
- Vegetarian shawarma made up of celeriac and truffles.
- A pancake made of moldy barley wrapped around plum seed ice cream.
Per Se
Location: New York City
Cuisine: French
Price: $355
Bottom Line: Per Se
No single ingredient is ever repeated in the nine-courses featured at Per Se, which cost $355 for its chef’s and vegetable tasting menus (the salon menu costs $255). But that’s just the introductory price. If you want some extras like caviar or black truffles, be prepared to pay extra. Way extra.
The Geechie Boy Mill creamy polenta, which includes shaved white truffles from Alba, will set you back an additional $175. And if you want the Wagyu steak with buckwheat groats and a mignonette, it’s another $100.
The price includes gratuities.
Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare
Location: New York City
Cuisine: Japanese with a French accent
Price: $362.21
Bottom Line: Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare
Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare lasts 2.5 hours with no tax or beverage included, although that oddly specific $362.21 does include the tip. If you want to pair wine, it’s about $200 more. The tasting menu includes 15 bite-sized dishes with Japanese and French inspiration. The restaurant has three Michelin stars.
Sample dishes (per Eater): "Trout roe tartlet, chawanmushi with foie gras, Hokkaido uni with black truffle, Miyazaki Wagyu with daikon and horseradish, white truffle ice cream, frozen soufflé."
Sukiyabashi Jiro
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Cuisine: Sushi
Price: $366
Bottom Line: Sukiyabashi Jiro
Jiro Ono is perhaps the most celebrated sushi master in the entire world, and at 94 years old, he’s still making sushi at Sukiyabashi Jiro (albeit only during dinner). Both lunch and dinner menus include 20 dishes and cost 40,000 yen ($361). There are no other options, and the experience is a quick one. The whole experience is only 30 minutes long, and some visitors found that the staff is inhospitable to foreigners.
Per Andy Hayler:
"However from the moment we sat down, the old gentleman who runs the place, and the chef who served us, regarded us with barely concealed contempt. They spent their time glowering at us throughout. The fish came at a very fast pace, and when at one point my wife stopped for a few moments towards the end and explained (via our translator) that she just needed a moment, they just took her sushi away regardless. 'The customer is always right' is not a concept that has caught on at this place."
Those who are lucky enough to be served at Jiro can expect some excellent sushi. The restaurant holds three Michelin stars.
L’Arpège
Location: Paris, France
Cuisine: Contemporary French
Price: $376-$464
Bottom Line: L’Arpège
Vegetables are the star at L’Arpège. Head chef Alain Passard cultivates all the menu’s veggies, herbs and fruit himself, and the restaurant holds three Michelin stars. Passard was featured on the first episode of Netflix’s "Chef’s Table," where he explained that he keeps no recipes, instead modifying dishes to fit the daily harvest.
Menus vary from 340 euros ($400) for the vegetable tasting menu to 420 euros ($494) for the earth and sea tasting menu. There’s a fixed price lunch menu for 175 euros ($206), and you can order la carte, too.
The lobster dish dish is $232.
Restaurant Guy Savoy
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada
Cuisine: French
Price: $385-$650
Bottom Line: Restaurant Guy Savoy
Dining at Restaurant Guy Savoy in Caesars Palace will cost you a lot of chips. The mainstay is the prestige menu, which runs $385 per person and an extra $200-$375 for wine pairing. Then there’s the six-seat Krug table, which pairs two glasses of Krug champagnes with 10 courses for $650 a head.
A sample dish, per Andy Hayler: "Quail was from Texas, sautéed and served with trompette mushrooms, spinach purée infused in brown butter, hazelnuts, pasta stuffed with chicken mousseline and foie gras, all surrounded by a quail jus."
The Araki
Location: London, England
Cuisine: Sushi
Price: $388
Bottom Line: The Araki
This tiny restaurant in London has only one menu and seats just 10 people at the counter, but there are an additional six seats in the private room available for an extra $38 if you’re a repeat customer.
The restaurant lost some of its luster when its previous owner and head sushi master, Mitsuhiro Araki, left in 2019. Six months later, the restaurant was stripped of all three of its Michelin stars.
Restaurant de L’Hotel de Ville
Location: Crissier, Switzerland
Cuisine: French
Price: $390
Bottom Line: Restaurant de L’Hotel de Ville
Menus at the Restaurant de L’Hotel de Ville change five times a year and in the fall, and up to 12 different game animals may be featured on the menu. The tasting menu costs around $390, but there’s also a slightly less expensive discovery menu.
Tripadvisor reviewers say it costs about $500 per person to dine in this restaurant, which has held onto its three Michelin stars for several years — even after the former head chef, Benoit Violier, took his own life in 2016.
Alinea
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Cuisine: Molecular gastronomy
Price: $305-$365
Bottom Line: Alinea
Alinea is the most expensive restaurant in Chicago and, currently, the only place in town to hold three Michelin stars. The main attraction here is the gallery menu, which is a multi-sensory experience with 16- to 18-courses (price varies depending on the day of the week).
The restaurant is exceedingly difficult to get into, and reservations must be purchased two months prior at 11 a.m. on the 15th of the month. For those looking for an even more elite experience, the private kitchen table experience for parties of six costs $395 per head.
A review snippet from the Chicago Tribune: "A speckled bowl filled with brittle sheets of dehydrated scallop is doused with broth, and suddenly there's an overwhelming aroma of fresh corn, and the sheets, rather than dissolving, assume a texture that's like a cross between a noodle and Japanese yuba. It's like eating scallop pasta coddled in corn and butter.”
Urasawa
Location: Beverly Hills, California
Cuisine: Sushi
Price: $395
Bottom Line: Urasawa
At Urasawa, expect to eat fast. Sushi master Hiroyuki Urasawa adheres to the 10-second rule, meaning that each piece of sushi must be eaten within 10 seconds after it hits a patron’s plate.
Prices start at $395, but the actual cost is much higher. An Eater writer spent "under $650" after tax, tip and a half-bottle of sake — and that was seven years ago. The restaurant is only open for three hours five days a week and has no web presence to speak of.
Also, it charges for water.
Ryugin
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Cuisine: Japanese
Price: $403
Bottom Line: Ryugin
There is only one 40,000-yen menu ($361), plus a 10-15 percent service charge, at Ryugin, and you get whatever the chef Seiji Yamamoto is serving that day.
Sample dishes, per Andy Hayler: "Abalone and matsutake mushrooms with a sauce made of the abalone liver"; "a teapot containing a broth with amadei or tilefish, along with a shrimp and hamo or pike eel"; “somen, very thin noodles that had been aged for three years, served with shiitake mushrooms and dried scallop and prawn, with a garnish of matsutake mushroom."
Ithaa Undersea Restaurant
Location: Maldives
Cuisine: Seafood
Price: $411
Bottom Line: Ithaa Undersea Restaurant
Want to dine under the sea? Take a pricey trip to the Ithaa Undersea Restaurant, where you’ll be served a six-course dinner five meters below the ocean, in a 30-foot-long glass corridor. All food in the Maldives (except the sustainably sourced fish) is imported, so that’s one reason for the expensive menu. The lunch menu is $250.
A review, per a Tripadvisor reviewer: "The restaurant feeds the fish, so they come flocking all around you. You are surrounded be [sic] fish. And of course there are fish on your plate, especially seafood. Are the fish outside looking at you eating their brethren, or do they want a bite? Are they judging you? There is definitely a surreal element."
Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athénée
Location: Paris
Cuisine: French
Price: $436
Bottom Line: Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athénée
Alain Ducasse’s restaurant in the Hotel Plaza Athenee is one of his most acclaimed restaurants with three Michelin stars. And it’s his most expensive. Both the Jardin-Marin and Garden-Marine menus cost 395 euros ($464). Both are composed of three half-dishes with cheeses and dessert.
If you’re looking for a celebratory dinner to ring in the New Year, expect to pay about three times that amount — a New Year’s Eve eight-course menu costs 1,200 euros ($1,326) without drinks and 1,500 with some bubbly ($1,357).
You can also order a la carte. The lobster with caviar is 190 euros ($216).
Joel Robuchon
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada
Cuisine: French
Price: $445-$495
Bottom Line: Joel Robuchon
One of the most expensive fixed-price meals in America can be found at Joel Robuchon in Las Vegas. The price was $445 when the 16- to 18-course menu was unveiled in 2015.
Sample dishes (per The Daily Meal): "A semi-soft boiled egg on a bed of spinach purée with Comté cheese sauce"; "fillet of John Dory on a bed of squid ink risotto, topped with tempura-fried shiso leaves"; and a "whole roasted duck topped with acacia honey and coriander, presented tableside before being carved and plated."
The Fat Duck
Location: Bray, Berkshire, England
Cuisine: Molecular gastronomy
Price: $450-$480
Bottom Line: The Fat Duck
Owned by celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal, The Fat Duck holds three Michelin stars and is one of the most famous restaurants in England. You don’t have a server at the Fat Duck, you have a "storyteller." Menu items are Blumenthal’s brainchildren and stray far from ordinary cuisine, like crab ice cream and snail porridge (now a retired dish).
A sample of dishes, per Andy Hayler:
- Rabbit tea ("a technically clever dish that mixed hot and cold rabbit stock served in a glass with a silicon divider allowing the hot and cold to be served in the same dish."
- Forest ("mushroom soup, truffle from Alba, log of truffle, mushroom jelly, truffle butter, lovage, blackberry, cep, fig oil, yellow beetroot powder and mushroom purée.)
- Fish and savory ice cream ("Jerusalem artichoke ice cream with cumin panna cotta came with salsify and shallots as well as a botanical tonic poured over the fish at the table, a rather odd mix of flavors, though each element was well made.")
Then there’s the Sounds of the Sea, a signature dish that includes sashimi and an edible sea-scape paired with headphones playing soft seaside noises. And dessert served on a floating pillow.
Zen
Location: Singapore
Cuisine: New Nordic
Price: $450
Bjorn Frantzen’s Zen in Singapore serves a meal that spans three stories. Guests are served snacks and introduced to the main course ingredients, moved to the second floor for an eight-course dinner and then ushered upstairs for dessert in lounge chairs.
According to CNA Lifestyle, Frantzen, a Swedish chef, wanted to create an atmosphere that was warm and inviting. He told the publication that his New Nordic style is heavily influenced by the Japanese.
"The French stole the idea from kaiseki, but spoiled it by putting so much gluten and lactose and fat (into the meal)," he said.
Prices don’t stop at $450. Add an extra $250 for a full wine pairing, $175 for mixed drinks and juice, or $125 just for a full juice pairing.
Sample dishes, per The Peak: "Tartare of red deer, finely minced, smooth and silky, topped with its special caviar and perked up with finger lime," and Frantzen’s French toast which is "elegant rectangles of crispy sourdough toast filled with parmesan custard, another heavy shower of autumn truffles, and a Chinese restaurant-worthy clear oxtail consomme to wash it down."
Bottom Line: Zen
Yukimura
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Cuisine: Japanese
Price: $463
Bottom Line: Yukimura
Yukimura is a three-Michelin-star kappo restaurant in Japan with just one fixed-price menu for about 50,500 yen ($456). Or at least, that’s how much it costs to book a table at Table All, minus the booking fee.
In a critical review from 2017 on Tripadvisor one person reports they paid 42,500 ($390) yen per person, which included a single beer.
Kyoto Kitcho Arashiyama
Location: Arashiyama, Japan
Cuisine: Kaiseki
Price: $483-$725
Bottom Line: Kyoto Kitcho Arashiyama
For 52,800-79,200 yen ($477-$715), including 10 percent tax and service charge, you can have one of the most expensive fixed-price menus in Japan. Kitcho’s menus include at least 10 courses and customers dine in separate dining rooms.
A sample dish, per a Tripadvisor reviewer: "…the next [dish], also sushi, had a cherry blossom theme and by this I don't just mean cherry blossoms were on the tray, I mean the food was made to look like the flowers...pieces of lump lobster, with a dot of pink roe atop, arranged in a clump of three, sitting beside green spiced leaf veg, artfully interspersed with delicate twigs of fried kelp.”
Ultraviolet
Location: Shanghai, China
Cuisine: Avant-garde
Price: $572-$1,000
Bottom Line: Ultraviolet
Ultraviolet is an avant-garde, windowless single-room restaurant in China with just one 10-seat table for a 22-course meal theatrically served. Images are projected onto the table and walls while music changes depending on the meal. Cameras monitor each guest so servers can swoop in with minimal disturbance (and definitely not to record any misbehavior for China’s totally fair social credit system). The New York Times has a video review of the place.
The set menu starts at 400 yuan ($61), double that for weekend visits, and bookings must be made four months in advance.
A review snippet from Andy Hayler: "The video walls now showed paper lanterns floating in the air. The hostess appeared with a large beeswax block, which she cut open to reveal black cod that had been cooked with lavender, oregano, tarragon and sage leaves. She sliced the fish ceremoniously into portions and this was plated along with steamed spinach, asparagus, almond, ginger and a pair of sauces: tahini sauce and black sesame sauce."
Masa
Location: New York City
Cuisine: Sushi
Price: $595
Bottom Line: Masa
New York City’s super-elite sushi temple has a single choice-less menu for an eye-popping $595, which includes tips but does not include drinks or tax. You can add a couple of dishes to your experience for even more money. According to a 2016 Eater report, adding Ohmi beef will tick up the bill by $150, and the white truffle ice cream costs another $68.
"Masa is the city’s greatest sushi restaurant," reported The New York Times in 2011. "That is not nothing,"
Sublimotion
Location: Ibiza, Spain
Cuisine: Avant-garde
Price: $1,653
Bottom Line: Sublimotion
Sublimotion is an avant-garde restaurant that’s a lot like Ultraviolet (although Ultraviolet precedes Sublimotion by two years), but it is significantly more expensive. Along with lights, sounds and projection imagery, the multisensory experience comes with illusionists and its very own soundtrack and VR headsets.
According to the New York Post, the Sublimotion experience begins with an edible ticket and a shot. The VR experience included skydiving and world tours, riding the Orient express and, at one point, an impromptu circus: "They rolled out Ferris wheels filled with classic treats, handed us balloons toting mini-sandwiches, and constructed a make-your-own dessert bar with cake pops, cotton candy, and popcorn in unrecognizable forms."
And for dessert, "Our table transformed into personal spinning stations and we were the DJs. The music pumped loudly and our desserts levitated as chocolate cakes spun 'round and 'round the neon turntables."
The cost is 1,500 euros ($1,764) per head and the single-room restaurant seats only 12 — meaning this restaurant grosses nearly $20,000 over the course of a three-hour dinner.
Related: Most Expensive Food Experiences