I consider myself quite the foodie and have eaten at numerous Michelin star restaurants, but I don't really care for them much anymore. However, I'll point out

I consider myself quite the foodie and have eaten at numerous Michelin star restaurants, but I don't really care for them much anymore. However, I'll point out one exception. I ate at CORE by Clare Smyth* in London a couple years ago and it is my favorite meal I've ever had. It was too new to be in the Michelin Guide, but now has 3 stars. What made this experience different was that the food was accessible. It was impeccable, the service was amazing, but I think that anyone can go there and appreciate how good the food is. First, the marginal returns are diminishing once you get past a certain point. I lived in SF for several years and the enjoyment I had at $50 plate restaurants was pretty equivalent to $150 places. Second, the "top" restaurants are incredibly inaccessible. Sometimes it comes down to the ingredients being very hard to work with, and they have the talent and the time to wrangle them. If you don't know that, it's underwhelming. If you do know that and you're honest with yourself, it's still often underwhelming. * Clare Smyth was the head chef at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, a 3 Michelin star restaurant, from 2012-2016. Among other awards, she was Good Food Guide's 2013 National Chef of the Year, World's Best Female Chef 2018 by the World's 50 Best Restaurants, and in 2018 CORE was named Best Restaurant at the GQ Food and Drink Awards.