$40 entrees on the table in many restaurants

NEW YORK -- When it comes to entree prices at restaurants across the nation, 40 really is the new 30.

From Seattle to Houston, Los Angeles to New York, Denver to Chicago, $40 entrees are practically as common as cloth napkins at an increasing number of restaurants.

Three-digit prix-fixe menus were already the norm at exclusive places such as Masa ($400) in New York, Gary Danko ($63-$112) in San Francisco, Le Bec-Fin ($90-$138) in Philadelphia and Charlie Trotter's ($135-$200) in Chicago.

Now, a-la-carte prices are a mouthful at lower-price dining establishments.

Chef Laurent Tourondel, who co-owns the BLT empire that includes restaurants in New York, Washington, D.C., and San Juan, Puerto Rico, with expansions planned for L.A., Dallas, Miami and White Plains, N.Y., says he has no option but to price his food as he does — $45 for Dover sole, for example, and $41 for a 12-ounce filet of beef.

"It was a very scary step to do a couple of years ago because $40 is a big amount of money for a main course," Tourondel says. "Now in every single (upscale) restaurant you go, you have the $40 entree."

And then some. Macaroni and cheese with shaved white truffles sells for $55 at Waverly Inn, the New York hot spot partly owned by Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter.

"It's incredible mac and cheese with truffles," acknowledges Tim Zagat, founder, CEO and publisher of the Zagat Survey guides. "But $55 for mac and cheese?"

If diners mind the high prices, they aren't showing it with their wallets. Sales at full-service restaurants are expected to reach $181.6 billion this year, an increase of 5.1% over 2006, according to the National Restaurant Association. Menu-price inflation was 3.5% from July 2006 to July 2007, compared with a 2.4% increase in the overall consumer price index for All Urban Consumers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

"People comment and express awe when they see a $40 entree, but they don't seem to be particularly angry," Zagat says. "There are quite a few restaurants in the U.S. that are way above the $100 mark. As that happens, it sort of inoculates people against getting upset about a $40 entree."

Blame some of it on the price of meat. "I don't sell low-quality meat," Tourondel says. "I sell superior quality, so the price per pound is more expensive."

Especially when it gets to the Kobe category: BLT's Japanese Kobe Strip costs $26 an ounce. Sizzling steak prices have engulfed the nation. At David Burke's Primehouse in Chicago, a 75-day-aged rib-eye costs $66.

"People have a harder time to understand (the high price) in the fish restaurant," Tourondel says. "Some people perceive fish as less expensive."

But it's not when it is line-caught, a more selective method of hooking fish on a line rather than catching it in nets. Hence the Belgian Dover sole goes for $36 a pound at his restaurant.

Donato Poto, co-owner of Providence, a popular, 2-year-old restaurant in Los Angeles that specializes in seafood and serves only line-caught fish, blames vendors' rising prices, gasoline (which he says has added $3 to $4 to dishes at many restaurants) and the weak dollar (which makes it costly to import from Europe). Even the weather can be a factor.

Earlier this summer, he almost pulled Maine lobster from the menu because of the high costs. He says bad weather made catching lobsters difficult, which led to increased prices from the vendors. Pound-and-a-half lobsters he usually offers for $50-$60 jumped to nearly $80.

"I was not comfortable with doing it, but there were people who were still willing to pay for it," Poto says.

The bottom line: His $40 New Zealand John Dory sells out daily.

"I've never heard anybody say, 'You guys are overpriced,' " Poto says.

Expect no letup.

When L.A.'s highly anticipated Bastide opened this week, chef Walter Manzke's menu offered only prix-fixe dining for $80 and $100 because one menu reduces inventory and labor. "The cost of food, labor, insurance — every element of the restaurant — keeps going up," he says.

What do diners think of this trend? How much is too much for a restaurant entree?