Dining at Chef Alain Ducasse's bistro Benoit in New York City is an excellent place to go with a group of friends but to make it even more posh you might want to reserve Le Officine, a private dining salon inside the restaurant. The restaurant mirrors the original Benoit in Paris, which opened in 1912 and serves French bistro classics drawn from Benoit's repertoire of 50 to 100 year old recipes.

Le Officine seats just ten people and is a small room covered in walnut paneling. According to the NY Sun's article on this room, it is a reconstruction of a French herbalist's shop, circa 1830. The entire dismantled shop was bought by Ducasse who had it restored and reassembled. The original porcelain nameplates on the cabinets identifying the herbs are still in place and Ducasse has added his own touches including a collection of old salmon poachers and an arrangement of white porcelain apples and garlic plants. The room's ends are anchored by mural sized photographs of Paris.

Great food always benefits from great scenery, so I can only imagine how dinner is at L'Andana, Chef Alain Ducasse's Inn in the Maremma region of Tuscany, Italy. The property is located in Tuscany's hills and groves and has 33 guest rooms, a Michelin-starred restaurant Trattoria Toscana, a 6,000 square foot ESPA spa, three pools, tennis court, /opportunities for yachting excursions, horseback riding and other jaunts through the scenic countryside. When it opened in 2004, the inn was named to Travel + Leisure's list of hot new places to stay. Even the reviewers at Trip Advisor have found little to complain about.

What goes perfectly with Tuscan food and Tuscan scenery? Tuscan wine of course. This year they are offering the Super Tuscan experience (ranging from €3.052 – 3.658, low to high season) which includes three nights (with buffet breakfast each morning), and two days visit and wine tasting in the famous Tuscan Omellaia, Sassicaia, Michele Saita with Mercedes transfer and Tognoni in the small medieval village of Bolgheri as well as dinner for two at Trattoria Toscana. Due to the current exchange rate the inn has implemented a guaranteed dollar rate program, meaning regardless of the weakness of the dollar at the time of your vacation, L'Andana will honor the rate at 1.45.

It's been my experience that restaurants with an amazing view are a mixed bag. Some are nothing special, assuming that you aren't there for the food as much as you are for the view, others go all out. The Jules Verne restaurant in the Eiffel Tower takes a move into the latter category with the announcement that star chef Alain Ducasse will be opening the newly updated restaurant next month. The restaurant has a view of Paris from the second level of the tower. The challenge for Ducasse was to create a restaurant that both tourists and locals would love. He also had to deal with the unusual requirements of the setting including furniture that met the tower's weight limits and a kitchen that cannot use gas that would produce flames.

Tasting menu's don't come cheap, but the range of flavors and the chance to experience more of the chef's repertoire is worth it for many. Some of the best restaurants in the world have gone to serving nothing but tasting menus, Charlie Trotter's in Chicago for example, and others simply offer them as a luxury for those who can afford it and want something a little different. So where to go if you're really looking to drop some cash and enjoy the great tastes of the best tasting menus? Well the single most expensive tasting menu in the world belongs to L'Arpege in Paris and runs $466, with the second and third most expensive also going to restaurants in Paris: Alain Ducasse Plaza Athenee ($437), and Guy Savoy ($402). Masa, in NYC, comes in at 4th with their tasting menu priced at $400 for 25 courses.

Using data compiled by the Zagat survey, Forbes has produced two lists naming the year's most expensive restaurants. One list deals with only US restaurants, while the other compares the prices (in US dollars) of places all over the world. For the global list, the final cost was considered to be the price of one main course, one (alcoholic) beverage and tip, while the US list was not limited to a single main course and included options such as prix fixe tasting menus. Both only priced dinner for one person, but due to the difference in standards, there are many prix-fixe only restaurants that didn't make the global list but might be a good deal more expensive, but here are the top three from each list as they stand:

Global

• Aragawa (Tokyo): $368
• Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athénée (Paris): $231
• Gordon Ramsay (London): $183

US

• Masa (New York City): $446
• The French Laundry (Yountville, CA): $254
• Alinea (Chicago): $168