Like many other ethnic cuisines, Chinese food is expected to be cheap. The American restaurant industry looks at Mexican, Thai and Chinese culinary are being highly affordable. This fact is so deeply ingrained that a person who is ready to spend five hundred dollars on a tasting menu in a French restaurant will balk at even shilling out 50 dollars in a Chinese eatery. To the American consumer, it doesn’t matter if the chef is equally skilled or the raw products are sourced from the same producers as the French eatery.

Thankfully, the elite branch of Chinese chefs is pushing back against this belief. From one coast of the country to the other, a new ear is dawning on Chinese cuisine. Fine dining places are cropping up all over the San Francisco Bay Area and New York. The chefs are working to take advantage of the deep pockets of the consumer. To do so, they are opening fine dining Chinese American restaurants with great fanfare. These places are subtle, exclusive and with enough high prices to charm the most discerning palate. They offer an intimate and opulent space akin to other fashionable eateries.