5 People Show What Their Meals From Michelin-Starred Restaurants Look Like (Some of Them Paid $1,000 for Their Dinner)

Restaurants all over the world fight for the right to get the highest award — the Michelin star. Customers usually can’t even book a table at these restaurants, and the line to get in may stretch around the block. The dishes that are served to the guests are real masterpieces that can be admired for hours.

We at Bright Side never cease to be impressed by the beauty of some dishes. That’s why we collected these stories from people who have been to Michelin-starred restaurants and who took a camera with them. Food in these places costs a fortune, but there are exceptions to this rule, and our bonus will prove that.

1. “I’m a regular person who went to a Michelin-starred restaurant.”

I’m not a foodie, so you might be disappointed by my descriptions of each course. All I can write is something like, “Well, It doesn’t taste like burgers from a fast-food restaurant.” We spent approximately $1,000 on 2 people.

On the left are rocks. This dish was delicious! And on the right are caramelized radishes in a tart shell.

On the left — white asparagus, on the right — garlic, seaweed, and cheese. Sounds cool!

On the left — asparagus. And on the right is... a cabbage sandwich!

On the left — lobster with onions and rose petals. On the right — a doughnut, I think.

On the left — a king crab with rocks. On the right — pickled fish and rose petals.

Reindeer moss covered in chocolate. Moss is my favorite.

2. “I went to Italy and had the best meal of my life at a 3-star Michelin restaurant.”

In 2002, this restaurant received 3 Michelin stars. It made the local chef the youngest chef to ever obtain 3 Michelin stars. He was only 28 years old back then. Our dinner consisted of 12 courses, and the food was delicious. I couldn’t even always tell what exactly I was eating.

This was the first course. I couldn’t tell what it was, but I ate it anyway. It was awesome. The dish on the right was more understandable — it’s a raw beef and caviar roll.

On the left — a clam with burrata cheese, on the right — sea scallops with apple agretto and green celery meringue.

On the left — whole wheat linguine with pine nuts and pumpkin. The wine glass is filled with hot broth that you’re supposed to drink after you finish this course. On the right is also a pasta, but with snails and octopus.

On the left — lobster with sea urchin and crab, on the right — lamb "alla Milanese."

On the left — dove stewed in balsamic vinegar. I’d never had it before. I wondered if we had ever met on the street. Or maybe I had fed it from my hand in a square? In the right picture, you can see a dessert. This is homemade ice cream with lemon sorbet, apricot puree, and ginger cookies.

Our last dish was Tiramisu. The unusual way of serving helps you experience the different flavors of this dessert.

3. “I had lunch at a 3-Michelin-star restaurant in Paris. The best thing I ate was an egg.”

The first course on the left is beet tartare with vegetable mustard. On the right — roasted pork with parsnips and honey.

On the left — spinach with rhubarb and carrot mousse. On the right — garden veggies with praline and pistachio dressing. This dressing was amazing!

On the left — a mix of hot and cold egg with chives and maple. It was unbelievably good! On the right — pork pâté with pesto.

On the left — beetroot sushi. On the right — a mix of mousse from beet, carrot, and asparagus.

It’s dessert time. On the left — a profiterole with cinnamon and honey. On the right — a chocolate Napoleon.

4. “My $290 dinner at a French restaurant.”

We got to the restaurant early, because we were celebrating an anniversary, and the menu was personalized especially for us.

The first dish was a canapé. This is a puff pastry with a creamy center — warm and just out of the oven. I picked it off the silver tray and put it on the same plate as the salmon tartar canapé with sour cream. On the right — Royal Ossetra caviar, oyster crackers, celery, and clam chowder custard.

The next dish was a sautéed fillet of gulf coast pompano that was barely fried, served with brioche, tomato marmalade, cilantro shoots, and whole grain mustard. In the lower picture, you can see a garden vegetable salad with Armenian cucumbers, peppers, radishes, opal basil, and olive oil.

On the left — Alaskan king crab “Boudin” with mashed potatoes, matsutake mushrooms, sunflower sprouts, and lobster mousse. On the right — mascarpone cheese with a poached egg, braised garden kale, Perigourdine sauce, and preserved Australian black winter truffles. I know it doesn’t look very appetizing, but it’s delicious.

On the left — herb-roasted nature-fed veal rib-eye with Applewood-smoked bacon, wilted spinach, Brentwood corn, and turnips. The whole meal was covered with Béarnaise sauce. The veal was wrapped in bacon, and the spinach was rolled up into a ball. On the right — Peking duck rillette with peaches, garden onions, English walnuts, watercress, and a port wine-shallot sauce. This was absolutely delicious, and I almost started licking the plate.

On the left — they called this dish “Ossau Iraty” and it consists of dried fennel with Italian olives, almonds, and caper purée. The fennel was crispy and you could break off the pieces to eat them. On the right — charcoal-grilled 100-day dry-aged marbled beef with roasted beets, Oregon porcini mushrooms, arugula, and sour cherry sauce with bone marrow. It was the first time I had tried this kind of meat, so I have nothing to compare it to.

On the left — guava ice cream and a piece of carrot cake. I didn’t like it very much. I don’t like guava and I didn’t want to eat this dish. On the right — huckleberry mousse over rice pudding with honeycomb and a drizzle of honey over it. It was my favorite fruit dessert.

On the left — chocolate marshmallow with cocoa, lemon, and a chocolate biscuit. I even didn’t mind that the look of the dessert slightly reminded me of liver. On the right — white chocolate mousse with salted caramel, and a berry jam center.

As the final dish, we got macaroons, truffles, cinnamon donuts, chocolate mousse (some customers thought that it was a drink and tried to drink it), and candied macadamia nuts. I wanted to pour everything I couldn’t eat into my purse to take home.

5. Food, science experiments, and 3 Michelin stars

This was one of the most delicious and inventive meals of my life.

The first dish was Ossetra caviar, lemon caper and red onion gel, toasted brioche foam, and egg yolk pudding.

We were presented with this bundle of vines and were told that our next course was somewhere in there and that we had to find it. And we did! It was dehydrated salsify and scorzonera roots covered in soy, chili, and garlic. It tasted a lot like flavorful beef jerky.

The dish on the left is poached Atlantic skate with brown butter, lemon, and herb stems. On the right — special tomatoes from seeds that were passed down from generation to generation, ashed goat cheese, and pistachio purée with licorice.

The first photo depicts one of my favorite courses. This is roasted corn with corn pudding and white corn grits served with manchego cheese and a dressing made of sherry vinaigrette, olive oil, and truffle. The bottom picture shows rhubarb with celery and red wine.

Another favorite of our dinner is the dish in the top picture. This is butter-poached lobster, saffron lobster bisque, yellow curry, puffed wild rice, cucumber, earl grey gel, grapefruit, cauliflower, coconut, and a fried fennel frond. In the picture at the bottom is a lily bulb, rambutan, and a distillation of lime and ginger.

In the top picture — a mix of cold and hot potatoes, a cold potato soup served with black truffle and butter. The next dish was cooked on the open fire. This is pork belly, charred parsnip, and kombu.

These 2 dishes were served at the same time. On the left, you can see some dumplings, and the right one contains duck, foie gras, and mushrooms.

On the left — blueberry, something that looks like gum, meringue, and sorrel. On the right — a balloon filled with aromatizing green apple gel. We could breathe in the helium and talk to each other. My phrase of choice was, “Pikachu!”

In the first photo, you can see the ingredients of the final course. The result is in the picture below. This is tropical fruit, rum, vanilla, and kaffir lime. A beautiful end to an unforgettable meal.

Bonus: What dishes that cost less than $2 from the world’s cheapest Michelin-starred restaurant look like.

We got there before the restaurant opened, but we still had to wait for nearly 2 hours on the street. There were about 30 people ahead of us, but a lot of locals were getting inside without having to stand in the line. I complained to the lady who was watching the line, and she agreed with me, but said that the owner values his regular local customers and that there was nothing she could do.

The food was delicious. Sweet soya sauce on slightly moist rice, sweet soft peanuts, and tender and juicy chicken. I would say go for it if you have time to spare.

What are the most expensive dishes you’ve ever eaten? Were they worth the money? Or did they just leave you with an empty wallet and disappointment?