We ate in a Leeds restaurant a couple of years ago and for 4 of us the bill was just short of £400. Not massively expensive but on the upper limit of my 'value for money' scale.
When visiting my brother in Australia we went for a degustation meal with wine to accompany the food. It cost over £100 each which we paid for as a thank you. In some ways though expensive it was worth it as it was a wonderful experience and the wine certainly suited the food.
For me there is a point where the surroundings and quality of food / how it's cooked becomes irrelevant. This is around £100 a head. Food is food and I know a little about restaurant profit margins.
//Degustation is a culinary term meaning a careful, appreciative tasting of various foods and focusing on the gustatory system, the senses, high culinary art and good company. Dégustation is more likely to involve sampling small portions of all of a chef's signature dishes in one sitting. Usually consisting of eight or more courses, it may be accompanied by a matching wine degustation which complements each dish.//
Little tasters of the chefs signature dishes and if you wanted he would give you a glass of wine that he felt complimented the dish. I thought it was pretentious rubbish but was plecently surprised.
I had never heard of it until I visited my brother.
Would like to taste a very expensive wine to see if it was worth it. Talking of around the £2000 mark or above. My brother (golden balls) got a bottle that was priced at £200 for £30 at a hotel could not tell it was 30 times what I would normally pay.
No he is just very lucky. Suave, sophisticated, intelligent witty and very very lucky. That night he bought two bottles of wine for £30 each, first one was priced at just over a £100 pounds and second one £197. If he flies he is more often than not upgraded.