If you’re looking to spend top dollar on a restaurant meal, you better head north—way north, that is.
Copenhagen is the global city with the most expensive Michelin-starred meals, according to a new report from the international food magazine Chef’s Pencil. There, among the Danish capital’s 14 Michelin-starred spots, the median price of dinner is $443. And Denmark itself is the country with the priciest Michelin-rated meals, with a median cost of $314 across the country’s 32 Michelin restaurants.
To arrive at these numbers, Chef’s Pencil analyzed the menus of 3,517 Michelin-starred restaurants, from the one-stars to the three. And it looked at all 41 countries and territories covered by the 124-year-old Michelin Guide. If a restaurant had more than one tasting menu available, the outlet chose the most expensive one, but it did not include any additional dishes, drinks, service charges, or gratuity.
As far as the costliest cities go, Copenhagen is heads above the rest in terms of median price. It’s followed by Macau with an average of $283, Hong Kong with $266, San Francisco with $263, and Dubai rounding out the top five with $259. And when looking more broadly at countries and territories, Denmark is followed by Hong Kong ($266), Iceland ($248), Singapore ($241), and the United States ($227).
Overall, the median price for a Michelin-starred meal among all the restaurants in the ranking is $179. Perhaps most interestingly, each star adds about $100 to the cost of your dinner. One-starred restaurants charge $165 on average, while two-stars jump to $256 and three-stars sit at $356. While the stars are meant to connote an increased level of culinary prowess and service, they also hint at an elevated price as well.
Vacation towns, too, lend themselves to pricier fine dining: Among alpine resorts with at least three Michelin-starred restaurants, France’s Megève leads the way with a meal costing $314 on average. And in lakeside and beach towns with the same requirement, Switzerland’s Ascona is charging about $275 for a Michelin-starred meal.
None of these data is really all that surprising, given that the cost of a Michelin-starred dinner has been rising over the past few years. And diners tend to expect that such a highly rated meal will cost them a pretty penny. But now you know exactly where to head if you’re looking to really break the bank—or, on the other hand, find a relative Michelin bargain.
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