Quotes of the Day

Honey, would you please pass me the wine, so I can cry into it?" As the bill for a dinner at L'Arpège in Paris was served up, its recipient couldn't restrain a shocked yelp ("$900 Canadian!"). His female companion, whose menu displayed no prices, had only been able to guess how much anything cost by her partner's cringes as she ordered. I cringed, too. French haute cuisine is frequently underwritten — and then written off as mugging at Sabatier knifepoint — by hapless tourists.

Since the late 18th century, when the Revolution cooked the goose of French nobles and left their former chefs with few options but to open restaurants, travelers have come to the republic to learn to eat. Trouble is, the cost of tuition has been skyrocketing. In 1926, American gourmet A.J. Liebling got his education for 6 francs a feast. Today, anyone in a restaurant with three Michelin stars can expect to gain several kilos and drop several hundred euros. And prices are rising like one of L'Arpège's avocado pistachio soufflés. In 2001, the set menu there cost 1,200 francs (€185); now it's €420 per person — no wonder nice guys from Winnipeg weep into their pinot.

OK, so I've been known to spend more on one meal than most would in a week. That's between me, my therapist and my accountant. The million-dollar question is, can it still be worth it? The short answer is yes. The longer one is that restaurants in all price brackets charge what the market will bear, not what they're worth.

Even for an experienced gastronome, the rule for approaching the high-stakes tables of Paris is the same as in Monte Carlo: know your game, never play with more than you can lose and still have fun. Fun is the whole point of eating well. But these are tough times. Fine dining is experiencing a wave of popular interest just as prices are soaring out of reach for many. "Destination restaurants" are becoming a one-time splurge for the curious. That, in turn, could lead to slipping standards if most diners are too intimidated to complain — and the rest are too rich to care. Dedicated foodies who have worked to pay their way through the University of the Good Life are being priced out of the market.

There's an argument, too, for starting the learning process on the nursery slopes of fine cuisine. Many novices get too dizzy from price-altitude sickness to enjoy their first top meal. Yet it's not always easy to know where to start. You can eat dreadful food in Paris for not that much less than a meal at L'Arpège.

How long can traditional haute cuisine hold out? Chefs like Alain Passard of L'Arpège or Bernard Pacaud of L'Ambroisie stay true to their art even at the risk of alienating haute cuisine virgins by charging big bucks for food they don't quite get. Alain Senderens, on the other hand, shut down the venerable Lucas Carton, an establishment boasting the full three Michelin stars, and opened a brasserie on the same site. He now risks alienating adherents of his ancien régime by letting the people eat cake — a Sichuan pepper dacquoise cake to be precise — for €17. The dish cost €60 at his old place. Senderens is only the latest top chef to drop out of the star system. Jöel Robuchon cashed in his Michelin status in 1996 to colonize Las Vegas and Tokyo and supermarket refrigerators with gourmet fast food. Many talented chefs refuse to join the ratings rat race altogether, opting to run more casual bistros.

Some latter-day sansculottes can't wait for the extinction of la cuisine snob. But since when does democracy mean a dictatorship of taste? If haute cuisine disappears, so will the whole web of specialist artisanal producers that it supports. And the consequences could be even more grim. The best of the best cooking, even at prices that risk inspiring a new French revolution, is much more than a form of self-indulgence. It is that, of course. But like fine art, haute cuisine is only concerned about its own ends, not conventional morality, status or popularity. Like love, it inspires and lifts, isn't rational and is often extravagant, and I'll take it wherever I can find it. That may be in simple fish shacks or Neapolitan pizzerias, but it's most likely to appear in luxurious temples dedicated to its worship, where its high priests present congregants with rich and fragrant offerings. Just one bite, and I'm transported. At those moments, money means nothing to me. I'm grateful to pay for a taste of the transcendent.

• LYDIA ITOI
• Haute cuisine is stupidly expensive, but some meals are masterpieces