The Prawn Seaweed and Whey seen at Atelier Crenn in 2018. The cost of the restaurant's tasting menu has risen by about 40% since 2016.
Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The ChronicleWhen customers leave Plumed Horse, aMichelin-starred restaurantin the affluent South Bay city of Saratoga, there’s one thing chef-owner Peter Armellino always wants to hear: “‘That was expensive, but really that was worth it,’” he said.
When Plumed Horse reopened last year, it became a little more expensive still. With rising costs related to supply-chain issues, plus new expenses like outdoor heat lamps and lighting, Armellino increased the price of the restaurant’s eight-course tasting menu from $168 to $195.
Since 2016, Plumed Horse has raised its price about 45%. That was roughly average amongBay Area tasting menu restaurantssurveyed by The Chronicle. With dining out more expensive across the board — the cost of meals at restaurants was 8% higher in August 2022 than August 2021,据美国劳工统计局(Bureau of Labor Statistics— the price of tasting menus might be the most pronounced expression of the trend.
Some culinarians see tasting menus, in which all customers are served the same series of small dishes, as the pinnacle of fine dining. All six of California’s three-Michelin-star restaurants serve tasting menus — though somecritics have lamented the format.
This series explores the changing costs of popular dishes in the Bay Area from The Chronicle's Food + Wine team. Read aboutburritos,croissants,pizzaandfried chicken sandwiches.
For restaurant operators, there are advantages to tasting menus, such as eliminating waste: Chefs don’t need to guess which dishes their customers will order. Most tasting menu restaurants also require reservations, which simplifies planning.
That means coming up with a menu price is also easy, in one sense, said Armellino: It’s simply based on “plate costing,” or measuring the cost of goods in each menu item. Plumed Horse, like many restaurants, uses costing software for precision. “I’m no mathematician,” Armellino said.
Corey Lee, the chef-owner of Benu in San Francisco, said the cost of his three-Michelin-star tasting menu came down to three factors: Labor, cost of goods and occupancy (or rent, upkeep and utilities). But there are less mathematical calculations to make, too.
“One consideration which is more subjective is how what we offer compares to other experiences,” Lee wrote by email — from other restaurant meals to the cost of sporting events and theater tickets, or even restaurant delivery.
“We need to make sure we’re financially stable, but at the end of the day, the most important thing is that our diners feel it’s worth it,” Lee wrote.
The rice course at three-Michelin-star Benu in San Francisco in 2018.
John Storey/Special to the ChronicleThat’s proven especially difficult to gauge during the pandemic. In the fall of 2020, when two-Michelin-star San Francisco restaurant Saison became one of the first fine-dining establishments in the region to reopen, it cut its 2019 price of $298 to $165, switching to an abbreviated menu. In 2021, the restaurant returned to its full menu at a price of $288. (Because Saison’s data made it an outlier, The Chronicle excluded it from average calculations.)
Today’s price at Saison, $328, reflects the restaurant’s increased cost of goods, Saison Hospitality's culinary director Paul Chung wrote to The Chronicle. “It’s mostly from items not seen on the plate, but integral to cooking,” he wrote, such as cooking oil, flour and other pantry staples. Saison’s smaller vendors, he noted, had increased their prices least, such as their supplier of antelope for a dry-aged antelope steak dish.
晚餐的价格工作室Crenn,厨师Dominique Crenn’s roughly 12-course pescatarian tasting menu restaurant in San Francisco, has risen almost 40% since 2016, from $298 to $410. The chef’s own profile has also soared during that time: In 2016, Crenn was the focus of an episode of the Netflix show “Chef’s Table,” and in 2018, Atelier Crenn received its third Michelin star.
Of course, a restaurant’s prices are a measure of demand. But “raising the price is not about raising the profit of anything,” Crenn said by phone.
For one thing, rent has gone up at her three San Francisco restaurant locations — it recently doubled at the home of her more casual restaurant Petit Crenn. And in a tight labor market — “we still are missing people,” Crenn said — attracting talented staff is more expensive than ever.
“We’re lucky that people want to work at Atelier, but we also have to be competitive,” she said.
With the pandemic in mind, other fine-dining restaurants have made changes to pay workers more. When Sons & Daughters reopened after shelter-in-place orders in 2020 were lifted, chef-owner Teague Moriartydrastically restructured the business, hiring all his staff full-time and setting a salary minimum of $65,000. To do so, he raised the price of the restaurant’s tasting menu from $145 to $175; it’s now $225, a 95% increase over its price in 2016.
At Plumed Horse and its fine-dining peers, there is one way to deviate from the standard tasting menu: With add-ons, or supplements — luxuries like caviar, truffles and Wagyu. Those, along with wine and liquor, can be the saving grace of a restaurant’s bottom line.
“If you’re a Michelin-star restaurant and you don’t have caviar and you don't have truffles, people are not happy,” said Armellino. “The business is, you know, taking care of people by giving them what they want, but also trying to get them to purchase what it is that you need to keep your business afloat.”
Armellino plans to update his menu again soon, increasing prices and incorporating some items, like caviar, onto the main menu. As usual, he hopes to hear from guests that the experience justifies the added expense.
Caleb Pershan is the San Francisco Chronicle's assistant Food + Wine editor. Email: caleb.pershan@sfchronicle.com
