Dining out? Put your money where your mouth is at the top end of town
The relatively sober $1000 dinner for two is just around the corner as big-name restaurants push the set-price tasting menu into the international stratosphere.
One thousand dollars for dinner? With just one (very) modest bottle of wine? Don’t laugh.
The relatively sober $1000 dinner for two is just around the corner as some of Australia’s biggest-name restaurants on the eastern seaboard, hit hard by escalating food and labour costs due to skilled shortages, push the now ubiquitous set-price tasting menu into the international stratosphere.
A survey by The Australian of what it now costs to dine at the top end of town in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane suggests Australia is lurching ever closer to cities such as Paris, London and New York when it comes to the special night out. Or even lunch. Many of the restaurants reviewed offer set menus only; some offer a la carte as well as the chef’s tasting menu at a set price. But based on the formula of a set menu for two, $50 spent on a pre-meal cocktails, a $100 bottle of wine and a 10 per cent tip on the whole, many of Australia’s biggest names on the dining stage are now nudging an almost $1000 real-world minimum spend for two.
And, given bottles of wine below $100 are rare at our best restaurants, and a postprandial cognac not entirely out of the question on a celebratory night, many are probably already there.
It may come as a surprise that some of Australia’s most expensive dining is in Victoria. Leading the way is chef Ben Shewry’s award-winning Attica, in Ripponlea, where dinner – based on our formula – will tip at least $957. The CBD’s Vue de Monde, always one of the nation’s most expensive restaurants, will, on the same formula, cost you $935.
And down in the country, in the hamlet of Birregurra in Victoria’s Western District, where chef Dan Hunter’s Brae has established an international reputation, choosing the matched alcoholic beverages option, thus omitting a pre-meal cocktail, will take you to an eye-watering grand total of $1166, including tip. The restaurant does not publish a wine list on its website, so we can’t tell you what sort of bottle $100 buys.
The CBD’s elegant Society Dining Room, without a set menu option, defies our formula but certainly belongs in this rarefied company when it comes to your credit card.
Melbourne restaurateur Guy Grossi – whose significant portfolio includes Melbourne CBD institution Florentino, where a set menu is $627 including tip, says restaurants are having to pay more to maintain standards.
“It’s widely known that the cost of goods has risen, cost of supply, transport, labour, utilities,” he said. “What is less obvious in there is an extra cost … here are added processes, fees and the increased cost of recruitment, training and development that restaurateurs face as they battle an ongoing skills shortage.”
In Sydney, the big hitters include Oncore by Clare Smyth at Crown ($935); Quay, consistently one of the nation’s most exciting restaurants ($781); and celebrity chef Matt Moran’s Aria ($715). Sydney institution Tetsuya’s will now set you back a minimum of $792 based on our real-world dining formula.
In Brisbane, the top of the tree is quite likely the “omakase” menu at the Calile Hotel’s new Sushi Room, where the 20-odd pieces of sushi eaten at the counter, made especially for you by a Japanese master, will set two people back a minimum $891.
Adelaide’s stunning Restaurant Botanic isn’t shy either. At $295 per head, our formula will get you dinner for two, with a bottle of 2021 Cloudy Bay sauvignon blanc, for $814. Unless of course you opt for the nation’s most expensive wine pairing, at $800 – per head – for the “Creme de la creme” option, which would bring dinner in at a cool $2464 including a cocktail and 10 per cent tip.
Strangely, in the city with more millionaires per capita than any other, super expensive dining is yet to bite. At Perth’s Wildflower in the Como Hotel, with a bottle of Castle Rock Estate “A&W” 2021 riesling, our formula takes the total to $550; Crown’s Nobu franchise possibly tops the WA list at $637. Tasmania’s Van Bone, a 20-seater in the wilds of Bream Creek, is almost certainly that state’s heaviest hitter at $583.
There’s no doubt dining prices – across the spectrum – have taken a quantum leap in Australia post-Covid. Throw in inflation and restaurants are at the forefront of passing on costs to their clients, or perishing. At least one restaurant within this group increased its set-menu price by 7 per cent this week alone. Once a nation where super-fine dining was an affordable luxury, the price of playing in a world market seems to be catching up, fast.
