This Is The Most Expensive Restaurant In CA

YOUNTVILLE, CALIFORNIA — Be prepared to drop about $1,200 if you order off the top of the menu at The French Laundry in Yountville, the most expensive restaurant in California, according to a new ranking.

Love Food, whose content includes recipes, food news, and opinion pieces, said the list of upscale restaurants in every state includes everything from “old-school, mahogany-filled steakhouses to seafood spots right by the ocean.”

The picks are based on the priciest main course or tasting menu. Spots with just one very expensive dish were excluded.

The editors of the list said the United States has some seriously upscale restaurants for diners looking to spend big on a special occasion.”

Love Food said The French Laundry is a famed three-star Michelin restaurant. It served as a French steam laundry room in the 1920s and was later turned into a restaurant in 1978 by then-town mayor Don Schmitt and his wife Sally.

Chef Thomas Keller, looking to realize his dream of one day opening a fine French restaurant in the Napa Valley, bought the location from Schmitt in the 1990s and established The French Laundry, according to the restaurant's website.

Keller has since curated a "meticulously crafted" menu, and although pricey, it is one of the best restaurants in California, according to Love Food.

Two tasting menus, which are changed daily, are offered. The Chef's Tasting Menu may feature items such as a Chesapeake Bay blue crab roll, Nova Scotia Lobster and Japanese Miyazaki wagyu. The Tasting of Vegetables Menu may flaunt a crispy hakurei turnip cake, Brentwood yellow corn ravioli and a garden summer squash dip.

One Google review described the restaurant as "absolutely exceptional" with an intimate setting and a warm and welcoming staff.

Another person described it as a "perfectly orchestrated symphony where each note is a carefully crafted bite."

"Even without Thomas Keller present, his spirit infused every detail — from the warm hospitality to the immaculate execution — like a master conductor's influence resonating through his orchestra," the review read.