World's most expensive restaurants

Last June, during his country's failed bid to win the 2012 Olympics, French President Jacques Chirac insulted rival Britain by saying: "The only thing they've ever done for European agriculture is mad cow." And he continued: "We can't trust people who have such bad food. After Finland, it's the country with the worst food."

In the end, Britain got the last laugh by winning the vote. Almost as important was the number of people around the world who immediately leapt to the defense of her cooking. As any sophisticated traveler knows, today the United Kingdom is home to some of the world's finest restaurants. The days when British food was synonymous with ghastliness are long gone.

And, true, while global gourmands praise the food of such top British chefs as Gordon Ramsay and Fergus Henderson, they also realize that they had better be prepared to dig deep to pay for the experience, because not only has British food become world-class, it has also become unbelievably expensive.

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A single meal with only a glass of wine averages £101 (around $176) at Gagnaire's wildly inventive Sketch -- The Lecture Room and Library near London's Oxford Circus. With a decent bottle of claret, not to mention tip and tax, dinner for two can easily sprint north of £400.

Of course, it's not just in London but all over the world that restaurant prices are shooting up. Gone are the days when gourmet meals were still moderately affordable in Paris. And while cities such as Istanbul and New Delhi still seem like relative bargains, even they are becoming pricier as well.

And, at the top end, Tokyo hasn't been a bargain in decades, and is, today, home to the most expensive restaurant on our list, Aragawa, where the average meal for one runs about ¥1,672 (approximately $277).

From Athens to Zurich, the combination of higher rents and energy costs, uneven exchange rates and increased demand is routinely putting the cost of a first-class meal, with wine, beyond the reach of all but the very rich, the very self-indulgent or the very fortunate with large expense accounts.

"The average international consumer is eating more expensively," says David McMillan, CEO of Paris-based International Hotels & Restaurants Association. "With really good restaurants appearing at the higher end of the average price range, but still within reach, we're seeing that people are eating out more frequently as well."

Over half of European diners surveyed said they spent more per meal in 2005 than they did in 2004, and ate out an average of 85 times per year (or about once every four days), according to the New York-based Zagat Survey's 2006 Europe's Top Restaurants Guide, which will be released this fall.

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Although Zagat Survey-takers are frequently self-selecting foodies, the trend of spending more money at more restaurants more often holds up across Europe -- and beyond.

"The eating-out market is growing internationally," says Jon Lake, Director of Corporate Finance and specialist in restaurant industry mergers and acquisitions at the London office of Deloitte & Touche. "The US and London markets are mature, but Australia, China and South Africa are all poised for significant growth. In South Africa and Australia in particular, people like the idea of eating out, but the supply side hasn't caught up. As the rest of the world starts to impact these markets, there will be a huge explosion of demand."

Currently, industry experts estimate that the international restaurant industry generates between $1.5 and $2 trillion in sales a year. The United States accounts for about $500 billion of that. That leaves hundreds of billions of dollars of revenue being spent at fantastic restaurants in China, Japan and India, and all across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. We decided to find out where the best, and most expensive, of these restaurants are.

First, we identified 25 capital or major cities outside the US. Then, as with last week's list of the Most Expensive Restaurants in the US, we partnered with the Zagat Survey to identify the most expensive restaurant in each city.

If one restaurant was tied with another in terms of price, we chose the one with the higher food rating. For cities not included in the Zagat Survey, like Dubai, Rio de Janeiro or Moscow, we investigated the recommendations of hotel concierges at nearby five-star hotels, who routinely pull strings and call in personal connections to get their guests dinner reservations in the city's finest restaurants.

Dollar amounts represent the estimated price of dinner, with one drink and tip, per person, or the cost of a prix fixe dinner (where indicated).

And what are people eating, once they get inside these culinary chapels, where dinner for two can easily run into the thousands of pounds, dollars or euros?

Although French menus are standard in a lot of places, "Japanese cuisine is rising in popularity," says Tim Zagat, creator and publisher with his wife Nina of the Zagat Survey.

"The cuisine focuses entirely on the ingredients, and Japanese chefs spend a lot of time figuring out where to get the best of what they are serving," be it a tomato or slice of Kobe beef. "Also, Japanese chefs are moving around the world very easily compared to Chinese chefs," Zagat explains. "Chinese food is stalled internationally because it's much harder for great chefs to get out of China."

But as economic growth takes hold in the farthest corners of the world, Lake predicts that regions like China and Southeast Asia will be the very ones targeted by restaurant operators hoping to penetrate international markets. And Moscow, which has a thriving restaurant scene, has the potential to add many more operators once the risk posed by organised crime abates and foreign investors feel safe investing capital.

For now, however, markets such as London and New York are centers of world cuisine partly, according to Zagat, because there is a lot of investment banking, and a lot of splurge spending--especially around bonus time. After all, to those who are passionate about great food, splashing out on special meals is no different from collecting art, owning a sailboat or buying season tickets.

"A lot of people buy floor seats for the basketball season and pay $2,000 each without batting an eye," says Zagat. "People spend money to get a great seat at Yankee Stadium, the World Series, or the opera. People who spend that kind of money at restaurants instead are restaurant enthusiasts, and they are willing to pay whatever to get whatever they want."

But $2,000 for a single meal? At these 25 restaurants, it would be easy.

Slideshow: The World's Most Expensive Restaurants