Chicago Has Half Of The 10 Most Expensive Restaurants In America

Alinea's Steelhead roe, watermelon, kaffir lime, oxalis. (Image Credit: Sam Miller)

The website Bundle.com analyzed spending data to determine the 25 most expensive restaurants in America. What has us and others talking is that five of Chicago's restaurants are in the top 10.

Leading the charge, unsurprisingly, is Alinea, with an average check total of $736. That places Grant Achatz's restaurant at fourth on the list. Charlie Trotter's is right behind Alinea with an unholy average check of $666. Rounding out the top ten are Tru and Les Nomades ($558 each) and Everest ($546).

Bundle made its list by analyzing credit card transactions from Citi, municipal data and third-party information. Expensive as those numbers seem, they're nowhere near the average tab of $937 for Thomas Keller's French Laundry.

Alinea, Trotter's and Moto also made Bundle's 10 most expensive prix fixe restaurants.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@chicagoist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Chuck Sudo in Food on January 24, 2012 9:00 AM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

Jennifer Hays

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furytrader

Haters gonna hate.

BlueFairlane

Dinner at Alinea will get you 147.2 feet of Subway sandwiches. It will get you 73 large bottles of my preferred CVS wine, totalling 109.5 liters, or, at the rate I usually drink it, 438 glasses. It will get you 246.15 pounds of Perdue chicken at the rate I paid at Strack & Van Till the last time I went shopping. Forgo dinner at Alinea 9.7 times, and you'll have saved enough to cover the tuition and fees of a University of Illinois freshman for one semester.

And foodie people wonder why the rest of us don't like them.

viachicago

People spend a lot of money on all sorts of silly things. Look at it this way, eating at a place like Alinea is the equivalent of going to the Super Bowl of food. For most people, its a once in a lifetime thing if at all. We live the ordinary day in and day out. What price would YOU place on the best meal of your entire life? Yea, its just food. And mountains are just piles of rocks but people still spend thousands of dollars and travel halfway around to globe to see them.

(for the record, Ive never been to any of these places)

twocee

While it's true that people spend money on all sorts of silly things, I think that the idea that one MEAL costs more than most people's entire monthly grocery budget is particularly galling, given our current economy. As I've commented on here before, it's a particularly "let them eat cake" situation.

ChicagoD

Sure, if you reduce and reduce and reduce, food turns into poo, and we all die, whether we see Mt. Everest from the top or not. Still, $736 is just a lot of money for a dinner. Is it even conceivable that there is anything intrinsically worth that in the meal? Granted, if the market bears it, the market bears it, but still.

BlueFairlane

Yes, people spend thousands on Superbowl tickets or spend tens or hundreds of thousands to climb Mt. Everest. But the fact that there are other stupid people in the world doesn't make Alinea diners any less stupid. I climbed Mt. Katahdin for a $20 camping fee and the price of gas to get there, and the best meal I ever had didn't cost a dime. But then again, neither of these experiences were about the show that went on around it. On the other hand, the most expensive meal I've ever eaten (about $100) was overcooked. Face it: food's food.

ChicagoD

Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! $736 for two people to eat. Jesus Christ.

twocee

That's literally more than my grocery bill for a month for 4 people. Including alcohol. But no tip.

ChicagoD

Oh shit, you tip at Jewel? No wonder my service sucks.

Navin_Johnson

It's more than what I pay for a roof over my head.

ChicagoD

Yes, but does that come with alcohol? Didn't think so.

Navin_Johnson

ha, yeah. I'd actually have a bit of dough left over for a few trips to the corner store..

Navin_Johnson

The staff should give the patrons a masochistic goodbye slap at the end.

ChicagoD

They ought to give them a handy for that kind of coin.

sat3911

I would guess the average is actually closer to three people and the average price and median prices aren't very close together. And I would guess that at least half that bill is for wine.

ChicagoD

OK. That's probably fair. I have not been to Alinea (can you tell?) but are there really much more cost-effective options that would make the median and average so divergent? Wine might be a big one, but still . . .
$368 for three people to eat, and not even have any wine with it. Jesus Christ.