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This is cool! As someone who's into fine dining, a few thoughts/tips for people starting out:

1. Don't go into a michelin level restaurant expecting "well it's expensive so it should be what I normally eat but better", think of it as its own category of food, that happens to have a really high buy-in price. Lots more crazy flavors, presentation, exotic ingredients, etc. It's not that it has to be 'better' than the best $12 bbq joint you've ever been to, just different.

2. Many very high end restaurants have great lunch deals, which can really cut the price to try them.

2. Many very high end restaurants have great lunch deals, which can really cut the price to try them.

That was one of the greater discoveries I've made about expensive restaurants. My wife and I had previously spent over $400 on an anniversary dinner at the Metropolitan Grill in Seattle. We're "common as muck", too; just a couple of country hicks from Indiana. It was nice, glad we went, wouldn't likely spend that kind of money on a meal again.

Then I started a job literally across the street in the Exchange building. Boss wants to go the "the Met" for lunch. On my salary?!?! That's when I found out that for $12, one can get one the better burgers one will ever eat. I recommend that steak salad, too.

* Note: all prices from like ten years ago.

> well it's expensive so it should be what I normally eat but better

When I went to Chez Panisse for the first time—not Michelin starred, but still well-regarded—I didn't know what to expect. What surprised me was that it was just "what I normally eat" but better. Not fancy, not exotic, not flashy; at a surface level, it was less interesting than food I've had at "normal" restaurants... but it was somehow just better. It surprised me because I hadn't realize just how much room there was to improve on the details and execution of, well, "normal" cooking.

I've occasionally seen something similar with codebases. Most code does what it needs to do, more or less, and hopefully it's not awful, but there are all kinds of sharp edges, inconsistencies, extra sources of friction—when I need to make a change, it's doable, but even the happy path has a bit of extra friction here and there, things that are clearly missing or in the wrong place or a bit hacky. And then, once in a while, I run into code that doesn't have those problems. Everything just somehow comes together; when I need to do something, there's an obvious way of doing it; when there's something odd in the design, it ends up addressing something I hadn't thought about. Somebody wrote the code with experience, attention to detail and the will to do quality work for its own sake. I don't know if it's the same with cooking, but with this kind of code, it generally took less time and effort for the people writing it than I'd expect from teams working on messier codebases.

Running into things like this is a visceral reminder that even "normal" things—normal food, normal code—can just be better. A lot.

These are really good points, and mirror my experience - though we are opposite - I'm definitely not into fine dining.

I didn't get point 1 til years later, after more reading. I'd tried uber fancy restaurants a few times, and each time left disappointed and really almost feeling cheated. Odd flavors (to me), small portions, a lot of art on the plate. I never really judged it based on anything but the value and taste, and if you do that, you'll likely be disappointed as I was.

I guess I realized I'm just a simple guy who likes common foods, but hey, we're all different.

> Don't go into a michelin level restaurant expecting "well it's expensive so it should be what I normally eat but better", think of it as its own category of food, that happens to have a really high buy-in price. Lots more crazy flavors, presentation, exotic ingredients, etc.

A hobby of mine is picking a neighborhood and going to every single eatery, from possibly-illegal hole-in-the-walls and popups to fast food chains to bakeries and delis to cafes to fine dining establishments. I think I've only been to one Michelin-starred restaurant though — there aren't a lot of those.

Restaurants have to cater to their clientele, even high-end ones. If you offer something creative on your menu, odds are there won't be a large market for it because most people want familiar fare. There are a lot of expensive-yet-conservative Italian restaurants in the US, for example — with lots of patrons who love them! The chefs may chafe at the constraints, but running a restaurant and bringing pleasure and satisfaction to your customers is a different endeavor than exploring the possibilities of cuisine.

If you want to experience unfamiliar flavors, presentations, and ingredients your best bet is to go to places run by and primarily frequented by first-generation immigrants. It's not that such eateries are any more adventurous — the same economic forces constrain them — but they target a clientele with different tastes.

The 80 eateries I've visited in San Diego's City Heights district offered way more variety and novel-to-me fare than the 70 or so restaurants I checked out on a tour of downtown San Diego. That's because City Heights has large enclaves of Mexican, Vietnamese and Somali immigrants, enough to sustain businesses which cater primarily to the tastes of those enclaves.

I can think of some high-end restaurants that had very interesting menus, but in my experience there is only a weak correlation between price and adventurousness. It may be different though for specifically Michelin-starred restaurants, since that's a curated list.

Point 1 is an excellent observation.

By analogy, don't think of fine dining as a big-budget blockbuster film. It's not better than other movies by having the biggest setpieces, the most explosions, the hottest stars, and the loudest soundtracks. It's not just more more more.

Think of it more like an arthouse film. Fine dining should be some of the best food you've ever had, but it should also be different from what you've had. Since much of their clientele eats out often, they are seeking not just quality but novelty.

Agree about the flavor and ingredients. Reminded me of this vox podcast I listened to recently about the loss of food/flavor diversity, which basically means large scale farming has mostly crowded out all kinds of strange heirloom plant and even animal varieties and their corresponding tastes. I think high end Michelin type restaurants can play a part in preserving a lot of these unusual types of foods and flavors. Even if it becomes a niche thing it’s great to retain unique foods from an evolutionary perspective. Link to the podcast https://pod.link/voxconversations/episode/54c858cc8d026dd5b4...
> well it's expensive so it should be what I normally eat but better

During the early stages of the pandemic when a lot of restaurants switched to carry-out only, Lazy Bear (a two Michelin star restaurant in SF) started Camp Commissary, where you could pick up different food items and meals to go. My wife isn’t into fine dining and would never eat the main tasting menu at their restaurant (which I had once before the pandemic), but she absolutely loved the to go items, because they were essentially what you describe: normal types of food cooked by Michelin star chefs (maybe with a fancy twist, like Morel mushrooms on a grilled cheese or fermented local vegetables).

I had the best pimento cheese chicken biscuit, duck sandwich, pop tarts, blackberry cocktails, snickerdoodle cookie, pea soup, lamb chops, tomato pie, pasta, and pork & beans of my life. There’s got to be a market for regular food cooked REALLY well. We spent tons on that place, and it was worth every penny (well, except one of the salads, which had like two pieces of lettuce and a grape).

> It's not that it has to be 'better' than the best $12 bbq joint you've ever been to, just different.

Well said!

Also, don't be the guy who goes in on a mission to dunk on the expensive restaurant. That's about as cool as the person who watches a popular TV show just so they can smugly complain about it. Just don't.

To the "experience" point, one of my all time best meals was crab at a three star restaurant. I like crab but it's normally not special to me. This was crab and almost nothing else prepared in four different ways that made the taste and texture entirely different. I'd never have ordered a dish described like that at a lower rated restaurant. It's not a meal I'd want to order over and over. But it's a meal I still remember fondly more than 20 years later.
I'm so glad this was a positive story, and I'm so happy for the author! I went into it expecting this restaurant to be mocked, since articles like this are usually played as a joke.

No, not everyone can afford to try a Michelin Star restaurant. A lot of Michelin restaurants suck. And you don't have to pay a ton for a good meal; some of the best food I've ever had has cost $10.

However, food is right up there with music as something that connects people. A taste or smell can unlock a memory you thought you lost forever, or create new ones you'll never forget. There's a reason meals are so prominent in movies and literature. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a good relationship with food (in fact, for many, the connotations can be quite negative), and I'm so happy for this person that she loved it.

When done right, nice restaurants are an experience. From start to finish, from the food to the drink to the decor to the people, it's closer to going to a Broadway play or art museum than it is a normal meal.

For people who can afford it readily, the experience is almost lost. It can become a status symbol, where the Instagram story is more important than enjoying it. It was so charming to see this through the eyes of someone who had no pretentious goals going into it, and had a wonderful time.

When I was in Italy with my brother back in 2019, we mostly ate at cheap local spots to keep costs down. But towards the end of the trip, I said lets go get some amazing food, regardless of cost.

We walked into this little Italian restaurant, ordered an expensive Merlot and a tomahawk steak to share. First the wine, "holy shit" was the exact words I used when I first tasted it, super smooth, to the point where you couldn't feel even the smallest bit of sting from the alcohol.

Then the steak, the tenderest steak I've ever had. You cut of pieces of fat and as soon as you put it in your mouth the thing just melts away.

In the end dinner set us back 250 euros, and much like this lady, I walked away going "that was worth every penny". Food like that isn't just about the experience, it's also the memory. That dinner I had is now almost 4 years ago but I still remember the wine and the slightly salted steak kisses fingers like an italian

For anyone intimidated by fine dining, I'd say approach it by recognizing that the people involved are really excited about providing a memorable experience for you, and that they've worked years at perfecting the whole performance of it, and making you feel comfortable and welcome (with adult boundaries) is their vocation. For a lot of professional waiters and cooks, it's like performing music, so be interested and curious and let yourself be delighted. It can also be a bit overwhelming, so even though you have probably eaten in restaurants before, treat fine dining like a new experience, as they've tried to make it one.

Professional staff can handle just about anything, and there's not much they haven't seen. The secret I think is to know before hand who is paying, have a sense of the budget from online menus before ordering so you don't have to focus on the prices, respect the personal boundaries of the servers, and if it's your first time, consider that you'd like to be welcome back.

I don't think any of them have a gong they smash whenever they see someone using their dinner fork for the salad, and some decorative table settings actually break with convention and can be a bit mystifying, so if you don't know what's what, ask. They can accomodate most things, but make dietary restrictions known during the reservation, as they'll usually prep for them. They're about providing a unique experience, so if your needs aren't medical, consider whether you're open to a new experience before spending a lot on one. Fine dining restaurants employ dozens of people with specialized skills, and provide livings that support families, so go, get treated like royalty for a bit, and use it as a waypoint for how well you can be treated and how good something as simple as food can be, then use the expereince to enrich your life.

> Suddenly, they were not tiny little plates of food for big prices. They were experiences, knowledge and expertise, presented in such a way that I could have flown if I wasn't anchored to the restaurant floor by a crisp table topped with stacks of cutlery.

Love this! Her synopsis could have easily gone the other way at “tiny plates of food at big prices”.

The experiences and attention to detail are what I like most about Michelin starred places.

Especially how a place so fancy can have servers that treat you so personably, which is her experience as well. “Lick the plate! I’ll cover for you!”

I’ve been to many places with inferior levels of validation that were much more pretentious, like the Italian places all over America where nothing is in English but you have to pretend you’re cultured enough to just know what everything is - there’s more English on menus in actual Italy! Even in the middle of nowhere!

The last thing is how the servers know when to be present without hovering or interrupting too often or too infrequently. Some places must have secret passages just for the wait staff and servers.

Quick story - I used to talk to a guy that worked in my building quite a lot about the food we ate. He told me that growing up he absolutely hated food. When he went to university his housemates decided to go to a Michelin starred restaurant and invited him. After a lot of turning them down (because "what's the point, food is grossly overpriced, I don't care for it," etc etc), he finally agreed. He said "coming home that night I realised my mother was a terrible, terrible, terrible cook." From then on it was like a whole new world opened up to him...

I always loved that. A) it's funny how our past experiences can completely (and sometimes incorrectly) shape our perceptions of the now. B) food can be such a wonderful thing - the smallest thing can make you so absolutely happy. And when someone just nails it (simple or not!), it really is quite the experience.

I love how the author came in with an open mind and let herself be taken away by the experience. It's rare that you see an article that's just about enjoying the experience and not scrutinizing it.

I've been to a few Michelin starred restaurants. For me, it's surprisingly inconsistent. I can have a meal that I absolutely adore (L'Astrance) and a meal that's merely decent (Pujol). That said, I try to enter each experience with an open mind. There's no cause for cynicism at the dinner table.

One of my first fine dining experiences was similar. A date for my wife and I paid for by my employer after a weekend ruined by an outage. I had steak tartare (fixed!) for the first time. I had cognac (outside of cheap cognac in a mixed drink) for the first time. A family at a nearby table had sweaters tied around their shoulders and were literally discussing their yacht club.

As someone who grew up with public school teachers for parents and corn fields surrounding my house, it was transcendental. The staff was just as lovely as the food, and it's easily the best gift I've ever gotten from an employer.

Michelin starred restaurants place a lot of emphasis on ensuring YOU enjoy your meal. Professional service does not judge, and is not snooty the way movies depict.

I just ate at SAGA in NYC in January; the servers were amazingly knowledgeable, wonderfully approachable, and ours wore a jumpsuit and sneakers. Not snooty, but ask about the wine and they'll happily share a wealth of information about the region it's from.

If you leave a restaurant feeling worse because of a servers behavior then it's their fault, not yours.

Slightly OT: The websites that are used by these [name of place]Live sites are absolutely shit.

They've bought up all the locals and put them under this banner. Slow, buggy, low information-density.

This is how the BBC looked as early as I can vaguely remember it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/default.stm better in almost every way.

I don't do fine dining either, but what I've noticed at high end places is, much like the author noticed, you get more for your money than you expect, not less.

It's true they don't like to be so crass as to talk about money, but other than the obvious (if you want another drink, it'll cost ya), things offered to you are often without charge. Little tastes of this, more of that. The prices on the menu are high, but it seems that once you've swallowed that, when you receive the bill, it's lower than you expect.

I always had a low opinion on these high-end restaurants, but had my girlfriend convince me to try a Michelin stared restaurant. I have to say that my opinion has completely changed, and I've tried a few since. One Japanese one in particular, was the best food I've ever tasted. I didn't think such an experience was possible - it was way out of scope of things imaginable for me.

I've since been thinking, we spend a lot of money for certain experiences in life, but paying such amounts for a meal is for most people ridiculous. Our sense of taste is a big factor that can perceive a staggering amount of combinations, so I think it is justifiable to spend a bit more money to go on a kind of culinary adventure from time to time.

Good story.

One thing to remember or value when you go to these places is that you're not largely paying for the food. You're paying for 4-5x the people per diner than any normal restaurant -- you're paying for their time to pore over the ingredients more carefully than you would yourself, their time to learn about and explain it to you, their time to come up with amusing and interesting ways to prepare it, their time to wait on you like a sultan and never fail to bore your palate.

Not saying that it's worth it for everyone or that it's even completely justified as they think it is (every artist thinks that any excessive amount they spend on some esoterica is "worth it"), but that's really where your $ are going. Maybe that's the way to think about it -- you're paying for art.

And being one of the few diners who the cost of paying for people's livelihoods is spread over (especially if those people have student loans to pay for) -- that is expensive.

My wife and I went to a Michelin star restaurant to celebrate our engagement. That the food was good was expected but the whole experience was just amazing. I think service and attention to detail and caring about the customer really makes the whole experience just so different. When they found out that we just got engaged, they printed out a new menu with all the dishes but also with "Congratulations" at the top. My fiancee/wife ordered a wine pairing but I skipped it because I'm a total lightweight and I was the driver. My wife would hand me her glass just to try a sip. When they noticed that they just brought out another glass for me each time they pour her from a new bottle and would pour me a small sip as well. We didn't have to ask and they didn't try to charge us for another wine pairing. The whole experience was just delightful.

Highly recommend Single Thread in Healdsburg if you do decide to go to one. Yes I did pick it partly because of the name and I'm a software engineer.

I haven't had the pleasure of eating at a Michelin star restaurant (yet, I fully intend to at some point) but I have eaten at places that could probably get at least one star if they were located in a city where Michelin gave them out.

It is truly an unforgettable experience from start to finish. It's obvious that so much thought and care goes into everything that you can't even really compare it to a regular "nice" restaurant. It's an entirely different class of dining, and this article conveyed it perfectly. Made me want to prioritize getting to an actual Michelin star restaurant.

The wife and I tried a Michelin Star restaurant, along with some restaurants in Toronto without the star, but with tasting menus.

I can mirror the sentiment from this article. Tasting menus are absolutely phenomenal, and worth the money, though of course I couldn't afford to have that every single day.

The idea of paying good money to a chef so they they can thoughtfully procure food instead of buying slabs of meat in bulk, and prepare it in such a way as to arouse the senses, is not really that wild of an idea (perhaps paying a multiple of a standard meal would be offensive to some, I get that.)

My only criticism is that while the food is frickin' amazing, you only get one bite of it, per dish. Maybe two. Maybe that's part of the appeal.

A three star restaurant really is something different. It’s not just the experience, the quality and consistency is just something that’s hard to find elsewhere.

The best cup of black coffee I’ve ever had was at a three star restaurant. It was just a simple cup of coffee but it was just made completely perfectly. Great beans I’m sure, a good roast, brewed exactly the right way. You can of course get that outside of a Michelin starred restaurant easily, but the point is in a three star restaurant everything is perfect, even the cup of coffee you have after dinner. They didn’t teen me where the beans were from or who roasted it, it was pedestrian for them.

Michelin also gives out an award for 'good quality, good value restaurants', called the Bib Gourmand, which is worth looking into. Bib Gourmand restaurants are often still a bit more expensive than the average restaurant in a place, but are generally of very very good quality and value for money.
I've eaten at three Michelin Stared restaurants in the bay area. Gary Danko, CPQR and Manresa. All were interesting experiences. Gary Danko was by far my favorite. The other two felt like it was all about he ego of the chef. Gary Danko was all about my enjoyment of the meal. They have three courses separated in sections, but you can mix and match. If you want a taste of filet mignon as an appetizer and a huge plate of escargot for your main, that's fine with them. Their wait staff is by far the most elite I have ever experienced. No one asking you if you need anything and not a waiter to be found, unless you need something then they magically appeared just as the thought was percolating into consciousness. Amazing.

CPQR was weird. We did three courses from the menu. Appetizer was the best, but the most memorable was the second course, though not for the taste. I order a pasta dish and before they serve they place a steak knife next to me. A steak knife, what the hell did I order? The dish comes and looking at it I'm still wondering what exactly I ordered...

Manresa was also a unique experience. First all the dishes were absolutely, amazing. One person in our party did not like fish except for scallops, which they accommodated. We proceed to have five fish based dishes in a row. Even though all five were fantastic, at the end my mouth felt like a tide pool, and having grown up on the beaches of Santa Cruz, I know that taste/feeling well. On the third fish dish, our friend got his scallops and boy did they look good. Then on the fifth and last fish dish he was served squab. The rest of us looked longingly at that bird, our collective mouths watering. He was lucky to leave that table alive...

I think the food was more inventive and more perfectly cooked at CPQR and Manresa but it's Gary Danko I would like to go back to.

If you live in a city that has it, then a good meal at a Michelin Star restaurant is a very worthwhile and achievable luxury. Go somewhere with a tasting menu (small plates). I’m happy that the author was able to experience it.

In the United States, the Michelin guide awards stars in NYC, Chicago, DC, and California.

I'm pretty sure there’s a Michelin star food cart in Asia that is like $3/plate. Not every Michelin star restaurant is an expensive French experience.
I went to a Michelin-starred vegan restaurant in Berlin (on the wall was a mural spelling the F-word and you had to walk through a warehouse to "find" the place) and it was really good. The wine was also very good. I wasn't "crying" but it sure was the best meal I ever had from a mere taste standpoint.

Whether it's worth it depends entirely on how much money you have. If you are FAANG Engineer rich, you could probably eat there every day if you'd wanted to. In that case, yeah it's worth it. If you earn the median salary in the EU, then nah.

I tried a Michelin star restaurant once and, pardon the pun, it left a really sour taste in my mouth. We were warned by friends who had been there before to eat a little something before going. We did and even so we were still starving throughout and after. It's hard to concentrate on delicate flavours and nuances when you're really hungry and it's 20 minutes between each spoonful of food for 4 hours. There were lots of other criticisms but that was the biggest one. I felt thoroughly dissastisfied by the end.
While I applaud the positivity here and relish it, when meals like this are no longer highly unusual to you they can also cease to be highly rewarding.

The key to repeated pleasure in this arena is to not fetishize luxury or cost, but rather to focus on the things that matter to you like flavor, ingenuity or even authenticity. Personally, I’ve had more fine dining experiences than the average person but I’d trade dozens of them for the meatloaf sandwich at my favorite Greek diner.

I was skeptical about fine dining. It was something my wife wanted to try but not so for me. I live in Singapore so one day we went to the famous Les Amis restaurant, a French dining experience. I've had French food before and wasn't very impressed.

I recall being amazed with every single dish that was served. The explosion of flavors, the originality of each dish, the intricate plating. It was like being able to taste "art". Sure the service was great but that's not the highlight. The highlight is in the details. And I love how after you're done with everything, they give you a little something to take home to complete the experience. They gave us a little lemon sponge cake made fresh with a little card.

It was definitely worth the $400 I paid for my wife and I. Sure, it's not something you eat everyday, but it's definitely you yearn for everyday. Since then I've been looking forward to anniversaries and birthdays; because that's a time I get to spend on fine dining.

A word of caution though: Not every fine dining experience was a hit. I went to one at Raffles Hotel and that was totally unmemorable; even though it was highly rated.

For years I spent a week every month or month and a half in Paris. Dined at dozens of different establishments, ranging from street vendors to starred restaurants. The best food and experience were in a not-ranked-by-anyone-anywhere Lebanese place in the Levantine quarter, and a hole-in-the-wall that served SW France provincial fare. Neither was particularly expensive. Similarly, the best Chinese food by far that I've ever had was when I convinced a colleague in Shanghai (who was a native of Szechuan) to take me to the Szechuanese place he'd choose, out of all he knew about Shanghai. Of course that cost a pittance, in US dollars, as back in those days everything in Shanghai did. The food was unbelievable. Ten times better than the starred menus I'd had in Paris and the Cote d'Azur in France.

Best sushi meal I've had, far and away, was in a place in near the old Tsukiji market in Tokyo. Seating for maybe 12 in the whole place, but plate after plate of single or double bites. But that one wasn't cheap - the author's 150 British pound wouldn't have covered the bill even a decade and a half ago when I ate there.

Fine dining is more of an 'experience' than a meal. It's like going to the theatre or watching an orchestra perform.

You're not paying for the food you receive per se, you're paying for the room, all the staff buzzing around to provide you with the experience, all the cooks required to give you 10 courses of something interesting and well-made, etc... It's a cultural experience. And the culture you're experiencing ranges from very old cuisine to very new cuisine, local culture to something very foreign, etc...

Also for anyone who thinks they're not 'fancy' enough to enjoy it, consider that cooks, chefs and servers are pretty much the definition of 'working class'. And the food is (usually anyway) delicious and interesting.

I've been to (as best I can remember) three Michelin starred restaurants in my life: Sierra Mar in Big Sur, California, Il Bucco in Sorrento, Italy (for my honeymoon), and Schwa in my hometown of Chicago.

My wife and I had a lovely time at each place.

Great article! I particularly appreciated the author's positive description of a good experience in a world where cynical takes are more dominant. Standout line for me from the article:

> When my bouche was adequately amused,

Some of my favorite experiences were excellent meals.

I hate the idea that fine dining is only for the immoral rich who are happy to conspicuously consume their way through an overpriced meal.

A great meal can be as eminently rewarding as any great sensory experience and equally worth the price.

If you don't see anything wrong with buying a hotel room to hear a concert from a favorite band in a distant city, or buying a plane ticket to fly somewhere with an incredible view, then there's equally nothing wrong with every now and then splurging on an amazing meal.

> So when the Michelin guide came out last week, and Birmingham kept hold of its five stars

Help me out with something

Although Michelin Stars only go to 3 stars

The Michelin guide for an area (which includes non-Michelin starred restaurants) goes to 5 stars? Or does she mean that the city of Birmingham has a total of 5 Michelin stars in the whole city, of which the restaurant she went to had procured 2 of those stars, leaving 3 stars to be split between one or two other restuarants.

Highly recommend doing this occasionally. Like so many other things, quantity can be exchanged for quantity. Go to a 5x more expensive restaurant and skip 4 meals at cheaper restaurants.

Restaurants that are expensive-ish but not sublime or memorable experiences can be skipped. Eat cheaply or really expensively. Skip “quite expensive but not fantastic” restaurants. Tasting menus at one star restaurants is where the value is.

This article made my eyes well up a bit. I love food and appreciate cooking and love to see people discover cooking at this level. The author’s reaction to it all, noticing the little details, is just beautiful. I also miss going to these types of restaurants and it makes me a bit sentimental. But soon it will all return, I hope.
It's been two years since I've eaten at a restaurant, and about five years before that. When I do go the food is quite memorable, compared to home cooking. If you want to make restaurant visits special just make them rare. Michelin restaurants are for people further down that particular hedonistic treadmill than me.
My takeaway from great meals that is restaurants are snow globes.

You may not remember the food, but you'll always have the memory and all the events and experiences that led up to that time. Years later you can shake that mental snow globe and get a happy nostalgia trip. That's worth the money to me.

Such a wonderful article!

I haven't dined in Michelin star restaurants, but a handful of very, very good ones for special occasions with my wife. The experience has been exactly as the the writer of that article had, every time. Great food is magical.

The michelin guide is a fantastic free online resource. The recommendations are so much more reliable than something like TripAdvisor. The key thing to understand though is that you are not just limited to going to 1-3 star Michelin restaurants (which are usually fantastic but often expensive). Instead if you are on a bit more of a budget look for the 'Bib Gourmand' rated restaurants. In my experience these usually provide fantastic value for money. Below that they also have categories such as the Michelin 'Plate', but these tend to be a bit more variable.
If you drink alcohol and have the option to get the wine pairing in a Michelin star restaurant, I'd highly recommend it. They are usually offered only with a prix-fixe menu where all the courses are pre-selected.

With (say) 7 dishes you'd have 5-7 small glasses of wine, each selected from the restaurant's cellar by a sommelier who knows what would go perfectly with each dish. This is a much better option than getting your own drink or a bottle to share with the table, and the experience of pairing amazing food with just the right drink is on another level.

This was well written. I appreciate the “commonness” of her article :) . My less literate experiences have been similar, as someone who scoffs at paying more than $10 for a meal. It's really nice to treat yourself (and your SO) to a really posh dinner occasionally, maybe a few times a year, and it's usually not as hard as people figure, although she lucked out at only 2 days wait (without being a millionaire pulling strings).
I actually find many high end restaurants to be worth the money.

It averages about 150 per person, but often there can be as many as 10 courses.

If one thought about how much each individual course cost, about 10 bucks on average, it is already a good deal (some dishes are caviar, foie gras, lobster…). Add to that you’re sitting there spending a nice 3 hours with someone special and enjoying a story told through the taste buds.

Most of the times it is worth the money.