You're figuring the monthly food budget. Let's see. Allow about $100 a week for groceries. And $30 for dinner out, for two, at the neighborhood tap. Add a half-dozen fast-food fixes, each about $12 for chicken, drinks and fries for the family.
Oh yes, don't forget your anniversary dinner. At Le Bec-Fin.
That's $140 for two - before drinks, before wine, before tax, before tip. After all those, even ordering only modestly priced wines, the bottom line hits $100 per person.
Gulp.
How does a restaurant meal come to cost $70 a person?
This is definitely big-league dining. Think of it as entertainment, theater, a night on the town. How can that price be justified?
Maybe this behind-the-scenes look at the cost of running Philadelphia's most expensive and most honored restaurant will give you an idea. We'll follow a typical couple - and the dishes such a couple might order - through a dinner.
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It is 6:10 p.m. on a typical Tuesday at Le Bec-Fin on Walnut Street, and 48 of the 53 reservations for the first dinner seating have arrived. A few linger in the tiny sitting-room bar, but most are seated and linger instead over the enticing menu.
At table No. 7, our couple - we'll call them Karen and James - are settling in. A peek at them from the service area suggests that this is their first visit here. She gingerly fingers the damask wall panel and leans to whisper to her companion. He glances, turns and more fully takes in his surroundings: the three glittering lead crystal chandeliers overhead, the four-foot spray of flowers on the fireplace mantel, the silver flatware and chargers on the table. Both seem entranced as much with the room as with each other.
By 6:25, waiter Mike Taquet has recited the specials, translated a little French, described dishes. It's a new, lighter menu, and even some of the regulars are asking questions. Karen and James make their selections.
As an appetizer, Karen has chosen Foie Gras Frais aux Raisins et Porto. James orders the crab salad special, a whim-of-the-chef that pairs warm lump crab meat with a cool shrimp mousse.
