Most often you'd be correct.

It's like buying a bottle of wine. A $100 bottle is rarely if ever five times better than a $20 bottle. But a $20 bottle can be much better than a $100 bottle.

Same holds true for a restaurant. It's not necessarily the price that dictates the quality. But at a certain price level....and we're getting back to the $1,000 a couple dinner discussed earlier....you would certainly have every reason to believe that meal would be world-class and infinitely memorable.

Of course not. Some places are simply over-priced, some to the extreme. NY used to be full of them, places basically living off past reputations. Most of those places have closed as the information flow from the web and multiple professional reviewing groups took their toll.

But, I dont think you can possibly get the same experience in terms of food and service that you get at some of the very, very best restaurants at a bargain. I think we were talking about this a bit on another thread. The old Alain Ducasse in NY had seats for 55 people. They had one seating per night. They had 50 full time employees. We heard Patricia Wells, food critic for the Herald Tribune in Paris, speak at a very small venue and talked to her afterwards. She was telling us how at Robuchons restaurant in Paris (Jamin, his old one) he had someone to use little scissors to trim the stems off the salad greens. That was most of what that person did for the day. Pierre Gagnaire used to fly mangos for dessert in from Tahiti, and I think they said they used to do it on the Concorde. Then there is something like serving perfectly ripe white peaches poached and drizzled with very old balsamic vinegar (I think 150 years) for a dessert in L'Arpege. It aint cheap to do stuff like that.

Works for me also. Why am I even looking at this ?

More to the point some of these restaurants serve maybe 10% of the food that they provision. The rest is throw away. They do this to get the "very best" of the best. Making that peach cost $20, to pay for the 10 others that were bought and not used.

I once ate at a restaurant in Paris and had an animated discussion with my dinner companion. The restaurant delayed desert during this, and I was astonished to have it arrive the instant that we were ready. What timing! Later I learned they had made it 4 times -- and it was ready to eat 4 times -- until they saw we were ready to eat it. So it cost 4 deserts to make 1. This is just the standard service at these places (Lucas Carton in this case). Astonishing. But worth it.

my supplier spent $900 USD at the Morton's in HKG for 5 peoople and 2-3 bottles of wine when he took us to dinner....

Should have gone across the street to either Pen or IC, get a much nicer dinner at either one for that kind of money in HKG (which is great value for fine dining).

Let's just say I don't agree with your classification of Le Francais in Wheeling as "first class" if that same standard makes Le Bernardin "first class."

in it's prime, I don't think there ever would have been an argument that Le Francais was first class. But it went through an ownership change several years ago and seemed to have quickly deteriorated.

This, however, from a recent blurb, on the restaurant. The chef that brought them to the party is now back in charge:

Chef Roland Liccioni is back ~ taking over the reign as chef / partner of Le Francais restaurant in Wheeling. The highly imaginative and artistic chef was previously at the restaurant from 1989 � 1999. During this time, Chef Roland achieved a five-star Mobil rating, five Diamond awards, accolades from Food & Wine Magazine, and in 1997, he won the James Beard Best Chef in the Midwest Award, a highly sought after honor. Under his direction, Le Francais was thought of as one of, if not the, best Restaurant in the United States. Chef Roland�s achievements literally put Chicago on the map of the culinary world.

In my opinion, taste is all about appetite.

My best meal ever?

One saltine cracker. (I was lost in the wilderness and had not eaten in 2 days)
I will never forget the taste of it. ever.

Cholula and obscure2K

I thought about you (my fellow Harry's lovers) when I ran across this quote
from one of my favorite Venice writers-- Jan Morris:

"Homage, whatever the trendies say, to Harry�s Bar, my local for half a century, where we once ate so delicious a dinner of scampi, salad, white wine and zabaglione that when we finished we had it all over again"


I just made reservations wayy in advance at Locanda Cipriani and have Venice on my mind.

Very cool!!

And buon appetito.

Well, what a high compliment, damon88
You will absolutely adore the Locanda. Please feel free to PM me prior to your trip.

Le Francais used to sell superb hand made chocolates.I hope they resume this practice.It was the best afte La Maison Du Chocolate that I have ever had.

My boss just had a meal at Joel Reblchon in Las Vegas.
The setting and service were suberb.But at $500 a head the actual food served was laughable-exquisitely plated and of the highest quality but the prtions were so miniscule that you never really got enough food to get the full effect.

Definately more worthy than Black Angus for me.