How much would you pay for the perfect dinner? Across Britain, some of the world’s most luxurious meals await, with armies of chefs working long hours shaping rare ingredients into amazing dishes in some of the most exclusive locations. But with sky-high prices, which menus truly deliver on their promise? We’ve combined iconic settings, culinary artistry and pure indulgence to rank the UK’s most extravagant dining experiences that are really worth the splurge.
Click or scroll through our gallery to discover the UK's priciest plates, counting down to the one that's truly worth saving for.
All prices are correct at the time of publication. Our selections are based on price data, genuine user reviews, awards and accolades, and the first-hand experience of our team. They're also regularly checked and updated.
A quiet industrial estate isn't the first place you’d expect to find one of the UK’s most influential fine dining spots, but Restaurant Sat Bains is a culinary powerhouse that has redefined British food since 2002. Holding two Michelin stars and a Green Star for sustainability, this Nottingham gem offers a 12-course Overture tasting menu priced at £249, with an optional Off The Charts drinks pairing at £595. Chef Sat Bains' innovative approach emphasises bold flavours and cutting-edge techniques, all while championing local produce from the on-site garden and greenhouse.
With its glittering chandeliers, gilded ceilings and white glove service, it’s no surprise that dining at The Ritz London – one of the capital’s most storied and extravagant dining rooms – doesn’t come cheap. The £215 seven-course Epicurean Journey tasting menu features a lineup of glamorous ingredients, including caviar, truffles, Yorkshire rhubarb and native lobster. Add the £750 Prestige drinks pairing, a £50 entertainment surcharge on Friday and Saturday evenings and a 12.5% service charge, and you’ve got one hefty price tag.
Diners at this nine-seater sushi counter in Mayfair don't have to worry about tricky menu decisions; the only choice is the £310 per person omakase option, a Japanese term meaning 'I leave it to you'. This set menu of the chef's choosing features the very finest fish and shellfish in simple combinations executed to absolute perfection. The restaurant lost its three Michelin stars when its founder, sushi master Mitsuhiro Araki, returned to Tokyo but protégée Marty Lau is on a mission to win them back.
Fancy food hits differently at Sketch, where bombastic interiors and art events compete for your attention with the equally eye-popping food and drink. It's the building's upstairs Lecture Room & Library restaurant that's bagged three Michelin stars, with a seasonal three-course à la carte menu that will set you back £235. Your spend is a one-way ticket into head chef Daniel Stucki's remarkable imagination. Add the Special Treat drinks pairing (go on, you're worth it) and your bill will top out at £620 plus tip.
It was 1972 when Michelin-starred chefs Michel and Albert Roux opened The Waterside Inn, their first restaurant outside London. Today Michel's son Alain oversees a team of more than 60, and the restaurant is celebrating 40 years holding three Michelin stars. If you want to see what has so wowed the guide's judges year after year you'll have to cough up an eye-watering £265 for three courses. Each will deliver a masterclass in regional French cuisine, and a level of luxury other restaurants can only dream of.
If there's one place it's OK to swear upon receiving the bill, this is it. Not only because its founding chef is notoriously foul-mouthed, but because the price tag is likely to be considerable. The Carte Blanche, a menu that gives the presiding chef a free rein over the seven courses served, will set you back £260. A seat at the Inspiration Table, where the Carte Blanche is enjoyed in full view of the kitchen, costs around £300.
What do you get when you cross one of West London's most luxurious hotels with a celebrated French chef? A fearfully expensive meal! A fourth-generation chef who holds six Michelin stars across her three restaurants, Hélène Darroze has created something very special at her British outpost. Expect to pay £225 for seven courses rammed with stunning seasonal produce, and as much as £665 for accompanying drinks pairings from The Connaught's impressive collection. Add the tip and you're well over the £1,000 mark.
The Collections of China banquet at Andrew Wong's Pimlico restaurant will just about ruin Chinese takeaways for life. So good is this parade of snacks, dim sum, fish dishes, regional Chinese smash hits and desserts that you may just spend the rest of your days trying to better the experience. The menu here costs £220 – reflecting laborious processes and some serious craft, as well as rare ingredients such as honey-glazed Iberico char sui, grated foie gras and braised abalone.
Dinner at a two-Michelin-starred restaurant in Scotland's oldest working distillery was never going to be cheap. From the world-beating ingredients to the house single malts and a location in the wilds of Perthshire, the experience comes at a premium. The extensive tasting menu (some 14 courses by our count) starts at £220 a head. Get lost exploring the 39-page drinks list – or settle for the £395 Rare and Baller pairing – and you might end up breaking the bank.
Marrying the rugged charms of its extensive vegetable garden with a delicate artistry in the kitchen, Moor Hall's Provenance menu serves 18 courses of dazzling seasonal produce to anyone with £235 to splurge. Chef patron Mark Birchall holds three Michelin stars; his dishes tour diners around the British Isles via Stornoway langoustine, 80-day aged beef from Devon, local Ormskirk gingerbread and a changing cast of other seasonal stars. Order the £295 Rarity drinks pairings to enjoy alongside your meal and you're really living.
Located just a short walk from Kensington Palace, this restaurant appropriately charges a king's ransom for its elegant dishes celebrating the best of British produce. A meal at the chef's table – watching chef patron Clare Smyth's team at work – will cost your party of 10 £255 each. But then you wouldn't expect a menu of Isle of Harris scallops, Cornish turbot and Herdwick lamb to come cheap. For a taste of seasonal, regional British food at its most refined, Clare Smyth's three-Michelin-starred flagship restaurant is hard to beat.
The haute cuisine offering at this iconic spot has won chef patron Jean-Phillipe Blondet (under the supervision of Alain Ducasse) three Michelin stars and a reputation for chic French dining. Expect exceptional ingredients such as milk-fed Pyrenean lamb, Périgord truffle and the house bean-to-bar chocolate. Seven courses of this delightful fare will cost you £285; chuck in a few grams of Kristal caviar to get the party started and you're looking at £325.
Prices aren't bandied about at The Fat Duck, Heston Blumenthal's iconic passion project in the Berkshire village of Bray. Never mind; fans of the nitro-poached, hay-roasted or triple-cooked dishes know to save up before coming to Britain's bastion of molecular gastronomy. Celebrating 30 years in business, the restaurant is serving up some of its greatest hits (egg and bacon ice cream, anyone?) in sensory-stimulating menus costing between £225 and £450 per person.
It would be a crying shame to reduce this Notting Hill-based three-Michelin-starred dinner experience to pure numbers. Aussie-born chef patron Brett Graham has developed a cult following for his exquisitely curated dishes, which celebrate British and Japanese ingredients with classic French techniques. There's an exoticism to the menu, with the likes of vadouvan spices, long pepper, kaffir lime, shiso and kelp featuring in various forms. Those numbers, by the way, would be £285 for the tasting menu, with matching drinks adding on an extra £150.
When the eye-popping £290 price tag isn't the most noteworthy thing about a meal, you know you're on to a winner. The 18-course omakase experience at Endo at Rotunda begins with an elevator trip up into the heady eighth-floor heights of the former Television Centre in White City – and the inner sanctum of chef Kazutoshi Endo. His team put on an impressive show as they wrangle the choicest cuts of premium tuna and nuggets of spanking fresh British fish and shellfish into 20 dishes.
It was 1984 when chef Raymond Blanc first bought French gastronomy to the Oxfordshire countryside, with his country house hotel earning two Michelin stars in its first year. Today, a seven-course dinner packed with the freshest produce grown on site in Le Manoir's acclaimed gardens and orchards will set you back £255. It's certainly not cheap, but kick off the meal with a £9,700 bottle of Clos d'Ambonnay bubbly and that food suddenly seems incredibly reasonable.
The five-hour, £385-plus-tax dinner experience at this West Wales restaurant with rooms has become something of a pilgrimage for gastronomes. In fact, visitors are reassured that their small helicopters can be accommodated in the grounds as they enjoy the 30-course tasting menu! The gutsy, bold dishes are built around some of the world's most expensive ingredients – A5-grade wagyu beef, Kaluga caviar, Welsh lobster – securing a legion of fans and two Michelin stars for chef patron Gareth Ward.
How's this for a magic trick: at this 13-seat omakase counter diners shell out more than £20 per mouthful... and leave happy! That's the wonder of sushi master Shinji Kanesaka, who curates an exquisite menu of Japanese morsels at this tiny outpost of traditional Japan in London's swanky Park Lane. If experiencing 20 courses of meticulously prepped culinary perfection is on your bucket list, you just need to scrape together a fee of £420 per person to pay for it.
With three Michelin stars, a fearsome reputation for perfection and an army of chefs, it's no surprise this rural outpost of excellence is a pricy option. And for many, it's worth every penny. The restaurant, housed in an old stone smithy and the flagship of chef Simon Rogan's empire, is a mecca for discerning foodies. Its 15-course tasting menu will set you back a cool £265 plus service, buying the unparalleled experience of immersion in the culinary village of Cartmel.
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