Haute Cuisine

Step inside some of Europe’s top restaurants and you wouldn’t know there had been a global financial meltdown a few years ago. These temples to haute cuisine are still unashamedly, perhaps reassuringly, expensive. In this rarefied world of showy dining, the cost of a single dish nudges into three figures. And that’s before you pay $1,000 for a bottle of wine.
In return you get some of the world’s most prized ingredients — truffles, caviar, blue lobster — served in fantastic surroundings. France leads the way, with four restaurants making-our list — five if you count Monte Carlo. It is, after all, the land where Michelin stars are as common as the designer handbags that get their own chair in these glittering palaces.

1. Le Meurice (Paris)
The king of haute cuisine, Alain Ducasse, holds court in the Versailles-style grandeur of one of Paris’s finest hotels. While there’s gold lining the walls of this three-Michelin-starred restaurant overlooking the Tuileries gardens, there’s black gold on the plate — supremely expensive black truffle.

Signature diner: Refined gourmet with a nose for earthy pleasures.

Signature dish: Whatever truffle dish suits the season. A starter of scallops and black truffle goes for $165.

2. Sketch Lecture Room & Library (London)

This top-price British venture created a stir when it opened in 2002 as people swooned at the thought of paying $66 for a starter. They’re still stunned, but as much by the outlandish decor of this dazzling Mayfair townhouse as by the prices. The a la carte menu remains eye-wateringly expensive, hence the popularity of the seven-course tasting menu for the bargain price of $157.

Signature diner: Jaded aging hipsters who like to flash their cash.

Signature dish: Langoustine done five ways, from raw to grilled.

A snip at $80 — then again, it’s only a starter.
 

3. Restaurant Paul Bocuse (Lyon, France)

Chefs come and go, but Paul Bocuse can rest in the knowledge that his restaurant just north of Lyon has held three Michelin stars since 1965.

Signature diner: Serious gourmets intent on worshipping at the temple of French cuisine.

Signature dish: It’s a tie between the truffle soup Bocuse created for French president Valery Giscard d’Estaing back in 1975 ($117) and the main course of red mullet dressed in crusty potato scales ($83).

4. Noma (Copenhagen, Denmark)
Chef Rene Redzepi’s creed is: If it’s not available in the Nordic regions, it’s not going on the plate.

He’s taken foraging to a new level, feeding people stuff you wouldn’t know was edible. Noma has been named the world’s best for three years in a row by Restaurant magazine. If you book now you might get a table sometime this century.

Signature diner: Those who like their cuisine on the cutting edge.

Signature dish: Wild duck so local you can practically pinpoint the last river it swam in.

5. Restaurant Pic (Valence, France)
Anne-Sophie Pic is France’s only female chef with three Michelin stars. It’s in her blood — she’s carrying on the family tradition started by her great grandmother in 1889. There’s no shout-y male chef nonsense here — it’s subtly and exquisitely classy. But you might let out a little scream at the $455 set menu.

Signature diner: Well-bred, well-dressed and well-behaved. Save your vulgar bling for the Riviera, please.

Signature dish: Sea bass with caviar, created by Pic’s father in 1971.