Most expensive dinner?

Took a boyfriend out to our one-year anniversary dinner at Morton's. With appetizers, steaks, wine, dessert and tip, it was over $300.

 

I'm not talking about buying a commodity piece of factory raised beef at a local supermarket. Around here I can pick from about a dozen butchers where they're selling locally raised grass fed beef which is likely far superior to anything you can buy at most steak houses.

And if you can crank your oven or grill up to 550 or 600 degrees, I submit that you can cook as good as or superior steak than you'd find at 90% of most steak houses

A steak dinner for two with a good bottle of wine that'd cost you $200 I could do for oh, $60.00. $30.00 for the steak and sides, $30.00 for a half decent bottle of wine. And I get to cook it which is half the fun.

 

I remember that. The fact that you and the Doctor got out of Centro for $130 is pretty damn good.Great restaurant

 

Shula's in Miami is divine. Shula's up here in Providence is awful; Ruth Chris is miles and miles better.
However, the biggest bill I was a part of was at Shula's in Miami. Eight of us rang up over 1K.

 

... a grand. On a meal.

I just can't even figure how that could happen to anyone who calls themselves a journalist, I don't give a shit where you work.

 

That's $125.00 a person. Not outrageous at all.

 

see, another example of how we can all have different experiences on any given night. for example, many naysayer on SportsJournalists.com about buffalo's "anchor bar" for wings, yet i've been there probably 20 times without a bad experience. "duff's," too, is excellent but i'm "anchorman."

there are several here who swear by "bern's" in tampa, which i've always found overrated.

and "luger's" is tree-mendous. may get the most tender cuts i've ever had. oh, and their ancient waiters are a pip.

 

Um, why do you care?

And my answer would probably be Ruth's Chris. Don't remember the exact bill, but it was in the $200 range at least for my wife and I.

 

Restaurants are labor-intensive and labor-determined operations, that is, how the employees perform at a given meal is how you react to the place. Sort of like baseball teams. And just like baseball teams, even the most consistent winner of a restaurant is going to have a few 13-2 losses over the course of the year.

 

I thought about and should have qualified my earlier quote. If you have a top flight butcher, that's a huge difference over your local supermarket.

Yeah, I hope you weren't referring to the person who spent $1,000 for eight people.

$1,000 for two is outrageous, but if it's your wedding anniversary and you're in Paris for the one time in your life, there's nothing wrong with that either. You budget it as part of your vacation.

Bern's is just a very different experience. It's almost overwhelming, but they're so good at what they do that it's not.

I also got a kick out of the dessert room. I always meant to bring a date back just for dessert, but never got around to it.

When I worked on Wall St., Luger's was the go to place to entertain clients. I worked at 4 WTC. A lot of our clients were downtown and we'd go early, right after the markets closed.

It blew me away the first time I went. The tenderness of the meat is incredible.

 

I never realized this until I started working on the periphery of the industry.

I've been in restaurants to work on their espresso machines in the morning. These are places that don't open for lunch, dinner only. And there's a whole crew prepping for that night's service.

It's not the cost of the food. You're paying for an entire experience.

And now, it's not dinner & a show. A top restaurant is an entire night's entertainment.

This place is one of the best & most expensive places in Chicago. It's tasting menu is $185 per person before alcohol: http://www.alinea-restaurant.com/pdf/alinea_menu.pdf

But with Broadway & concert tickets topping $100, I don't consider $100 per person for a top experience to be too much. At $185, it's got to be a special occasion, but sometimes it's worth it.

The owner of the above restaurant, Grant Achatz, is getting ready to open his new restaurant. It won't take reservations, you will buy a ticket.

Here's a write up on it from May in the Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/dining/05achatz.html

 

agree, the dessert room is an excellent feature. i just prefer to leave a steakhouse raving about, you know, the steaks, not the cheesecake or tiramisu.