How to eat at top restaurants overseas for half the price

San Sebastian-based three-Michelin-starred chef Martin Berasategui also runs a one-star restaurant in Bilbao.Credit: Getty Images

Call for your bill after lunch at a fine-dining restaurant in Japan and you'll think there's been some sort of mistake.

Have they forgotten something? Why is this half the price you thought it was going to be? Or even less? Were you served a different menu? Has the chef been replaced? Is this even the right restaurant?

The answer is actually simple: this is the way high-end Japanese eateries work. Their standard meal pricing, for set-menu or "omakase"-style dining, is for dinner. That's when most people will want to dine.

Lunchtime pricing, meanwhile, is designed to attract diners for a less-popular meal. Thus, it's cheaper; a lot cheaper. We're talking half-price or more.

This is one of the key tips for enjoying the fine-dining experience on a tight budget, not just in Japan but around the world: go for lunch, not dinner. Though the savings are probably biggest in Japan, restaurants in many other countries offer similar deals.

Illustration: Greg Straight

Some will do express, "executive" lunches, meals designed for corporate workers who don't have several hours to dedicate to a 15-course experience, and are priced accordingly. In Europe you will also find some restaurants do a "prix fixe" lunch experience, a menu consisting of three or four courses, with a glass of wine, at a modest price.

There are other ways, too, to access the upper echelons of dining on your travels without breaking the bank.

Look for restaurants that offer a la carte menus, instead of – or even as well as – the far more common set-menu, degustation-style of eating. This way you can choose to have only a few dishes, perhaps just entree and main, rather than commit yourself to a $200 or $300-a-head tasting.

Another tip: eat at the bar. Though this will make no difference at all in countries such as Japan, in the US in particular it's a game-changer.

Bar seats here are not coveted in the way they are in parts of Asia, and you'll find the menu is seriously discounted for those happy to have what is perceived as a more casual and less luxurious experience.

Be aware, too, that if you're in a city with a popular theatre culture (New York, London, Paris), restaurants close to those theatres sometimes offer discounted express sittings designed to get patrons fed and watered and out the door in time for the show. That's a great way to eat on the cheap, even if you're not hitting the theatre.

Finally, rather than dining at that very famous and definitely-very-expensive restaurant you had in mind, look for a similar, lower-tier eatery run by the same chef.

Spain's Basque Country has plenty of great examples: Asador Etxebarri, the famed wood-fired grill, runs a casual, walk-up pintxos bar every Sunday lunchtime; San Sebastian-based three-Michelin-starred chef Martin Berasategui also runs a one-star restaurant in Bilbao; legendary Getaria seafood eatery Elkano operates a casual pintxos bar nearby called Elkano Txiki.

Be prepared for bill shock there – but in a good way.