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You are also paying for superior quality ingredients. That $80 steak might be because the restaurant has an exclusive relationship with a specific organic beef

by biot 14y ago

You are also paying for superior quality ingredients. That $80 steak might be because the restaurant has an exclusive relationship with a specific organic beef rancher and you can't buy that rancher's meat in regular stores. Those grilled scallops may have been caught that morning, sent fresh to the restaurant, and shucked five minutes prior to you eating them. If you're only getting grocery store quality ingredients at a fine dining restaurant, you're getting ripped off.

mindcrime 14y ago
You are also paying for superior quality ingredients. Agreed, that is part of it. But I will contend that a 4x increase in price does not reflect a 4x increase in the quality of the ingredients. Now, granted, that's all very subjective and hard to measure. And all I have is anecdotal evidence, but on the occasions when I have found myself paying $80.00 or more for a steak, I've never finished it and thought "wow that was 4 times better than the $20.00 steak I had last week". If you're only getting grocery store quality ingredients at a fine dining restaurant, you're getting ripped off. Fair enough. I agree that ingredients do matter, just not sure they fully justify the higher price of the nicer restaurants. Having grown up at the coast, near Holden Beach, NC, I got used to eating very fresh seafood. Now, when I have seafood further inland, I can definitely notice a difference based on the ingredients not being as fresh. That actually leads to a bit of a paradox... some restaurants, just due to their location, will never be able to replicate the best possible seafood experience, due to the need to transport ingredients. So the $50.00 seafood meal you eat at a restaurant in, say, St. Louis, probably won't be as good in some regards as a $15.00 meal you could have in Calabash, NC, just due to geography.

by biot 14y ago

mindcrime 14y ago

You are also paying for superior quality ingredients. Agreed, that is part of it. But I will contend that a 4x increase in price does not reflect a 4x increase in the quality of the ingredients. Now, granted, that's all very subjective and hard to measure. And all I have is anecdotal evidence, but on the occasions when I have found myself paying $80.00 or more for a steak, I've never finished it and thought "wow that was 4 times better than the $20.00 steak I had last week". If you're only getting grocery store quality ingredients at a fine dining restaurant, you're getting ripped off. Fair enough. I agree that ingredients do matter, just not sure they fully justify the higher price of the nicer restaurants. Having grown up at the coast, near Holden Beach, NC, I got used to eating very fresh seafood. Now, when I have seafood further inland, I can definitely notice a difference based on the ingredients not being as fresh. That actually leads to a bit of a paradox... some restaurants, just due to their location, will never be able to replicate the best possible seafood experience, due to the need to transport ingredients. So the $50.00 seafood meal you eat at a restaurant in, say, St. Louis, probably won't be as good in some regards as a $15.00 meal you could have in Calabash, NC, just due to geography.