As for the question at hand——-highly priced/rated restaurants. Almost all of the time they disappoint for the price.
I live in SLC. My wife and I spent $250 for a dinner at a Michelin nominated joint last month. Mediocre at best.
We were visiting my daughter in Los Angeles last week and I spent several hundred dollars for a table of 6 at a renowned Italian restaurant. Again, not a great meal or dining experience. Not worth the cost.
Not to say there aren’t restaurants worth the price but they are few and far between in my experience.
This is a good one for me, although $200 for two for dinner seems to be
de rigueur these days around here, so $250 isn't out of the usual realm. (As an aside, recently we were in Scottsdale, AZ and were shocked at how much cheaper meals were there, so it's definitely geographically based.)
Anyway, a few days ago we sketched out our lunch and dinner plans for a trip to Chicago in May, and tonight we were remarking how all of our plans eschewed going to a new or hot or cool place and instead focused on solid local (non-Michelin) joints. Almost guaranteed to get a better meal in one of those.