The Most Expensive Restaurants On Earth

Certain restaurants have earned their reputation by spending millions on design and construction, hiring top-notch staff, sourcing the highest-quality ingredients available, and turning all of those things into life-changing haute cuisine. Although dining looks different in the age of coronavirus, here is an eye-opening look at lavish restaurants with sky-high price tags on fabulous eats.

To determine the most expensive restaurants, we scoured local and national publications, crowd-sourced for places we may have missed and reviewed menus for the ultimate high-ticket dining experiences. All of these spots are places where guests pay a set price of more than $300 per person for a multi-course meal, or more than 100 bucks on an entree. You may notice a few famous places missing from the list. This is because they're closed indefinitely due to safety concerns or government mandates. Rest assured, if and when they reopen, they'll rejoin the ranks.

The tasting menu at chef Cesar Ramirez's New York City three-Michelin-starred Chef's Table, predominantly featuring fish and shellfish, costs $394.36 per person, not including wine or sake. This spot is one of the hardest restaurant reservations to get in America, but because of the pandemic, you can now order impressive eats and bottles of Champagne or wine for much cheaper, exclusively through Caviar.

Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athénée is the Paris flagship of one of the world's most renowned chefs. Alain Ducasse has transformed the main dining room of the Plaza Athénée into a shimmering, white-and-gold fantasy, with massive chandeliers dripping with crystals. The atmosphere is jaw-droppingly beautiful. The five-course prix fixe costs 395 € (about $458), but if you want to order a la carte, expect individual dishes to cost up to 195 € ($226).

Chef Thomas Keller approaches French cuisine with classical technique at his Yountville, California, restaurant The French Laundry. If you want to dine at this three-Michelin-starred restaurant, however, it's going to set you back: Both menus — the chef's tasting menu and a tasting of vegetables — cost $350 per person for outdoor dining only. If you've got something to celebrate and you're looking to splurge, look no further. The French Laundry is one of America's best special occasion restaurants.

Several menus are available at Guy Savoy's eponymous Las Vegas restaurant, and they're all exorbitantly expensive: The main menu costs $555 per person — premium wine pairing included — the Krug Chef's Table costs $650 — this comes with 10 courses and Champagne — and if you care to dine a la carte, entrees average around $125.

Restaurant de l'Hôtel de Ville in Crissier serves some of Switzerland's finest cuisine. A la carte dishes range from 60 Swiss francs (for vichyssoise) to 220 (for Bresse chicken for two), and the multi-course menu costs 390 (the Swiss franc-to-dollar exchange rate is about 1-to-1).

If you want to dine at the world's first undersea restaurant, you're going to have to head to the Maldives and be ready to shell out for the privilege: a four-course lunch at Ithaa Undersea Restaurant costs $220, and a six-course dinner will set you back $330. Located 16 feet under the sea, it's one of the most beautiful restaurants in the world.

Kitcho Arashiyama in Kyoto, Japan — a top destination for travelers after coronavirus — has four different tasting menus, each increasing in price and lavishness. A meal here includes soup, sashimi, a side dish, a grilled dish, a slow-cooked dish, steamed rice and pickles, fruit and green tea and confections, but it's so much more than that. The price ranges from 40,000 yen (or about $375) to 60,000 yen (or $565) — and that's before including tax and service charge, which pushes the bill up to 79,200 yen (or $745).

Located inside the Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong, the Krug Room is one of the city's best-kept culinary secrets. Chef Robin Zavou creates three tasting menus using high-end meat and seafood along with seasonal produce, and each course pairs with Krug Champagne. Three price tiers are available: 2,888, 3,888 and 5,888 Hong Kong dollars per guest (about $373, $502 and $760, respectively) for parties of six.

Dripping with opulence, Le Meurice is one of Paris' most renowned — and expensive — eateries. The two-Michelin-star establishment from Alain Ducasse boasts antique mirrors, frescoes and chandeliers alongside more modern elements like Space Age chairs and a water-inspired sculpture. Upon the reopening of the restaurant in September, two new dinner menus will be on offer. The first will cost 250 € ($289) and the second will cost 320 € ($370)

A stunning Parisian gem, Le Pré Catelan is helmed by chef Frédéric Anton, who's earned it three Michelin stars. The eight-course prix fixe menu features cherry tree-smoked salmon, veal sweetbreads and langoustine ravioli with foie gras and fine gold leaf jelly. The meal will set you back 290 € (about $336).

Chef Anne-Sophie Pic's three-Michelin-star restaurant Maison Pic is located in the charming city of Valence in southeast France, and it's centered around a large chandelier and three unique dining rooms with windowed bays that open into gardens. The tasting menu here costs 320 €, or about $370, and features plates called Eucalyptus recomposé ("recomposed eucalyptus") and Verdeur fondante ("melting greenery").

The one restaurant you need to visit in Ibiza is Sublimotion. The 12-seat restaurant is essentially a blank canvas, and as each course changes, so too does the setting. Over a 12-course dinner, the scene shifts from the bottom of the ocean to a lush garden to a futuristic club to a carnival to high-tech fictional worlds, with music, VR and stagecraft. A meal there costs 1,650 € (or about $1,913) per person, and guests are welcome to enjoy the open bar in the private terrace when dinner concludes.

This restaurant is so cool, you need to see it to believe it. Ultraviolet is one of the most outrageous restaurants in Shanghai, China. Its 10 nightly guests are taken to a secret location, where they sit around a table in a minimalist dining room and enjoy a 20-course avant-garde meal. Wall projections, sounds and smells correspond with each dish, and the price tag is quite high: 4,000 yuan, or about $571, per person.

Some say the chance to dine at Noma is like finding the golden ticket in Willy Wonka. This famous Copenhagen, Denmark, restaurant serves seasonal plates, including a vegetable menu in the summer and a game and forest menu in the fall. Pricing is subject to change as the offerings do, but you can expect to pay around 2,650 Danish krone ($412) per person, plus 1,450 Danish krone ($225) for wine and 950 Danish krone ($148) for juice.

There isn't much quite like an incredible Italian meal, and chef Massimo Bottura's Osteria Francescana in Modena, Italy, serves a contemporary and traditional tasting menu that changes according to its latest kitchen research. For 12 courses, expect to fork over 290€ ($332), and if you want wine, add 190€ ($217). If you prefer a la carte, main courses such as lobster in double sauce, "we are still deciding what fish to serve" and fillet alla rossini with foie gras and caviar will run you 110€ ( $126) to 150€ ( $177) each.

Geranium in Denmark, Copenhagen, offers an artistic multi-course tasting menu featuring organic, wild and seasonal Scandinavian ingredients. The plates here are described as "edible art." For example, there's a dish that looks like razor clams, but is actually dough painted with squid ink. If you're lucky to get a reservation here, your tab will be 2,700 Danish krone ($417) per head and up to 15,000 Danish krone ($2,316) for wine pairing.

The fixed lunch and dinner menus at Frantzen in Stockholm are 3,500 Swedish krona ($395) per person, plus your choice of beverages. The three-story restaurant has 23 guests per seating, all of whom are treated to an experimental 10-course tasting of Nordic cuisine with Asian influence.

If you're looking for a romantic dining experience, Mirazur in Menton, France, boasts unparalleled views of the French Riviera and three levels of vegetable gardens. The tasting menu is inspired by the sea and mountains and always changing, but you can expect to pay 320€ ($370) for a meal at the world's best restaurant.

The menu at Narisawa in Tokyo changes with the seasons, with each rotation representing Satoyama, a border zone between mountain foothills and flatland where people live sustainably with nature. Here, dinner will run you 38,500 yen ($360).

Enjoy AIR: Alinea in Residence, an all-new multi-course Chicago rooftop dining experience, available rain or shine for $285 to $315 per person; or take your meal to go for a much cheaper price. This meal requires reheating at home, but we guarantee either option is worth it. Alinea is among the 101 best restaurants in America.

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