A $444 steak? What’s the most expensive meal at a Fresno-area restaurant?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Sukai lists A5 Kagoshima Wagyu at $37 per ounce, $444 for 12 oz.
- Bulle charges $125 for Kaluga amber caviar with milk bread and crème fraîche.
- The Elderberry House offers a five-course prix fixe at $175 and a $1,960 2011 Montrachet.
Say the words “high end” and “Fresno” in the same sentence and opinions will start flying.
Regardless of how you feel on the topic, the Fresno area has seen an influx of upscale restaurants recently.
Bulle restaurant launched in late March with $125 caviar and $45 cocktails. Weeks before, The PM Lounge, a private club with a monthly fee ranging from $1,500 to $3,500 to even set foot in its restaurant held its official opening.
So it got us thinking. What is the most expensive meal in this area?
If talk of a meal that costs more than a day’s pay for some people makes you want to throw this story across the room, check out our poll about the best budget deals at FresnoBee.com. We’ll be sharing the results about where to get the best bang for your buck.
But back to caviar and Wagyu steak. Before you say “Nobody buys caviar in Fresno,” think again.
It’s actually a top seller at Bulle.
Fresno has wealth, said Falina Marihart, owner of 13 Prime Steak in Clovis.
“We have money here (in the area),” she said. “It’s just the overall perception is that we don’t, but we do.”
Despite $6 a gallon gas, the economy isn’t affecting her customers right now, she said. They still have money to spend.
And there’s plenty of places in Fresno and Clovis to spend it. In a recent poll about the best high-end restaurant, there were 25 to choose from.
It’s hard to pick a single winner for the most expensive meal because it depends on what you order. High-end whiskeys and wine can really jack up the price. We also excluded some dishes, such as a $125 Tomahawk steak that’s around 50 ounces because people usually share it (though a few will eat the whole thing themselves, Marihart said). But here are some contenders for the priciest meal for one person in the Fresno area.
Contenders for the most expensive restaurant meal in the Fresno area
Sukai at Table Mountain: $772
Sukai is the teppanyaki restaurant on the 12th floor of the new Table Mountain casino. Floor-to-ceiling windows offer views of the surrounding hills and $18 is the standard price for a cocktail.
It has teppanyaki rooms, a regular menu with all sorts of options, sushi and a bar with a balcony.
The meal:
$20 hamachi jalapeño appetizer made from the raw fish, peppers, ponzu sauce and micro cilantro.
$444 A5 Kagoshima Wagyu New York strip steak from Japan. This one is on the menu for $37 an ounce. Say a diner orders a 12-ounce steak. Kagoshima is a top beef producing area and A5 is the best kind of Wagyu you can get. It has so much marbling (fat) that gives it flavor that it looks like a meat version of granite countertop.
$8 strawberry matcha mousse cake.
$300 glass of the 18-year-old Hakushu Japanese peated single malt whiskey. This sells for $1,499 a bottle.
Total: $772
Sukai doesn’t want to be labeled as having the most expensive meal in the area, a representative of the restaurant told The Bee.
And though you can spend a lot if you choose here, the majority of the menu has much lower prices.
For example, its teppanyaki experience costs mostly between $30 and $50, depending upon which protein you order. Sushi rolls start at $11.
Like many restaurants in the central San Joaquin Valley, Sukai is straddling several income levels, attracting middle-class customers and big spenders.
The PM Lounge: $1,500 - $3,500+
The PM Lounge is a new private, members-only club with a monthly fee to dine, hang out at the bar, use the golf simulator or enjoy a performance on the stage.
The swanky club at Cedar and Nees avenues declined to participate in this story and its menu isn’t online, so we don’t know how much a meal costs.
But you’re going to need to pay the membership to have a meal here. The monthly fees with varying privileges cost $1,500, $2,500 and $3,500, along with a corporate option.
A meal may not cost as much as you think, because the fees subsidize the menu prices, according to an earlier Fresno Bee story. The food is prepared by a culinary team working at Michelin-level standards and presented by a staff working off the Forbes standards of service.
The PM Lounge also has a wine wall that can hold up to 800 bottles, surely including some high-end wines.
But it’s going to cost you a minimum of $1,500 to get in the door.
Total: $1,500 - $3,500+
Bulle: $429+
Bulle debuted this spring at Marks and Herndon avenues, its owners wanting to bring the fine dining they experienced out of town to Fresno.
The sustainable farm-to-table restaurant aims to be the most upscale option in Fresno and the Valley, said owner Tom Miller.
The meal:
$125 Kaluga amber caviar served with milk bread and crème fraîche. The price comes from its rarity, as it takes this type of sturgeon 10 to 20 years to produce eggs.
$39 Crispy farm egg served with Iberico ham, spinach and Parmesan cheese.
$55 Perigord black truffle imported from Europe to go on that egg or anything else.
$82 A5 Wagyu Coulotte, the top grade of Wagyu beef available, from a tender cut of top sirloin butt with a thick fat cap that gives it flavor.
$55 ice cream and caviar dessert made from crème fraîche and topped with Ossetra caviar.
$45 Bulle Signature Martini. This martini is made with the high-end Belvedere 10 vodka (which sells retail for around $150 a bottle) and a Mediterranean gin and vermouth. It’s topped with three olives hand stuffed with Point Reyes blue cheese and topped with caviar. Little dollops of Meyer lemon olive oil float atop the drink.
$28 Moongate cocktail made with Dalmore 12, a 12-year-old single malt Scotch that retails for up to $99 a bottle, Ficklin wine amaro, elderberry-infused gin, hojicha syrup, flamed house bitters and black cardamom.
Total: $429
Bulle has an extensive wine collection, but its wine list is not online and the owners couldn’t be reached before deadline. So instead of including a bottle of its most expensive wine in the total — which would surely make the price skyrocket — we opted for a second cocktail.
Miller has talked about his restaurant’s prices in the past, saying they are a good value for the kind of food he is serving.
“We’re bringing the highest quality food in the world – not in Fresno, in the world,” he said, noting that he has a chef who graduated from Culinary Institute of America in New York and worked at several restaurants honored by the Michelin Guide.
Most people don’t spend upwards of $500, however. The average per person bill was about $125, Miller told The Bee last month.
13 Prime Steak: $386
The local owners of 13 Prime Steak at Willow and Nees avenues also own the more mid-priced breakfast spot Yolked Kitchen a few doors down. The steak house is known for its Harris Ranch beef, cocktails and a dining room with eclectic lighting.
The meal:
$28 crispy lobster appetizer with pepper jelly.
$78 a black coffee-rubbed 16-ounce prime rib-eye with whipped potatoes, vegetables, black coffee barbecue sauce and Tabasco onion strings.
$14 Chef Tommy’s warm bread pudding with praline sauce.
$28 Smoke & Mirrors, a cocktail that is smoked tableside with applewood chips and made with the pricey WhistlePig Rye whiskey washed in duck fat, with cranberry gastrique and cherry bitters.
$220 for a bottle of their most expensive wine, even if you only have a glass of it, a 2020 cabernet sauvignon from the Spottswoode Estate in Napa Valley.
Total: $386
Owner Marihart considers her restaurant more special occasion than high-end. (To her, a high-end restaurant is one that requires a jacket, she said.)
It still aims to nab customers on a budget with a $145 three-course dinner for two on Tuesdays through Thursdays.
“We’ve always been a different type of restaurant for our area,” she said. “We don’t really consider ourselves high-end. We have a high-end price point.”
The Elderberry House: $270 - $2,135
Formerly Erna’s, The Elderberry House in Oakhurst has a Forbes four-star rating.
It has a prix fixe (fixed price) menu for three- and five-course meals, at $125 and $175.
Of course, the wine is where things can really add up. The Elderberry House has an option to add a glass of wine paired with every dish to your five-course meal for $95.
Or, you could skip that and order a bottle of something really high end. The most expensive bottle listed on the restaurant’s website costs nearly $2,000.
The menu here changes nightly, but we pulled from the sample menu online.
The meal:
$175 for five courses.
Ahi tuna crudo with jalapeño, horseradish, citrus and sesame.
Spiced carrot and bell pepper bisque with lemon crème.
Olive oil poached halibut with spring onion, carrot.
Miso-glazed duck breast with spring garlic, strawberry, petite turnip.
Chocolate torte with espresso, caramel, apple.
$95 wine pairing.
$1,960 for a 2011 white wine, a Côte de Beaune from the Burgundy region of France, Montrachet Domaine Jacques Prieur Grand Cru.
If you buy that (and skip the wine pairing) your meal is going to cost a total of $2,135, but 91% of that is the wine. If you get the five-course meal with the regular wine pairing, your meal clocks in at $270. Total: $270 - $2,135
