12 Most Expensive Buffets In America And Which Ones Are Worth It

The very word "buffet" inspires instant thoughts of getting a ton of eating done for a single price, making a dining experience that comes without a sticker shock-inducing final bill. But what if the sticker shock comes before you even set foot in the restaurant in question? What if the opposite of a satisfying all-you-can-eat moment on the cheap is one where you pay top prices to enjoy some of the finest food around until you can't take anymore? What price would you be willing to pay for such a peak dining moment?

It might help to understand what qualifies as expensive in the world of buffet eating and to know what you get for your hard-earned buffet money. Among the best buffets in every state around the U.S., the most expensive ones provide top-tier food at mind-bending prices that might make it difficult to keep your dinner down. If you can stomach the numbers following the dollar sign, you might be able to enjoy a superior dinner that lets you decide what a serving size is, provided you have enough room on your credit card to foot the bill. Take a look at the priciest spots inviting you to eat your fill and find out which may turn out to be the best buffet restaurants in America and which can be skipped in favor of more affordable fare elsewhere.

It's never a bad thing to find a buffet serving lobster, though it may be something to be wary of knowing the price is bound to be a bit steep. In the case of the all-inclusive lobster buffet at The Nordic in Charlestown, Rhode Island, "steep" doesn't even begin to cover it. With its $135 price tag for adult diners, you might be reluctant to bring anyone too young to appreciate high dining with you, though if you opt in for your little gourmets, expect to pay an extra $60 for your 8- to 12-year-olds and $35 for kids between the ages of 3 and 7.

Seafood appears in all its various luscious forms here, everything from cold water lobster and bacon-stuffed shrimp to New England clam chowder and clams on the half shell. You'll also find prime rib, chicken wings, sides, and desserts to round out your meal as trim or as full as you please. Tripadvisor reviewers largely rave about the uniquely generous offerings here, and many Reddit users proclaim the high price point as justifiable. If you have a little extra spending money when on the Atlantic coast and you're up for eating an ocean's worth of seafood, The Nordic seems to fulfill its pricey potential.

Of course you're going to find cheap buffets in Las Vegas; the Strip was practically built on this dining format to give gamblers of all stripes and budgets some sustenance as they worked their luck at the casinos. But Wynn Hotel doesn't hold back when it comes to pricing for its take-your-pick spreads, slapping a $75 sticker on a selection of upscale dishes available at your disposal. You may not be paying rock-bottom prices here, but you're also not getting bottom-of-the-barrel food for your money. As with everything at this posh palace, buffet-style dining is taken to the hilt.

What do you win at Wynn when you pile prime picks onto your plate? How about fresh pastas, handcrafted tacos, hand-carved meats, and a full range of seafood and salads? There's also a suite of sweets both elegant and whimsical to end your dinner or serve as the entire meal. It's easy to see how all-you-can-eat buffets make their money: from hungry guests who adore the good life and don't intend on compromising while visiting Vegas. The flower festival decor may transport visitors to a Wonderland tea party setting, but a Yelp average of 3.7 stars across more than 6,500 ratings and several reviews noting the low quality of the food suggest that you can spend your winnings in more savory spots.

Grab a crab or two — or however many makes you happy — at Crab House, a top-notch buffet in New York City for eaters of all ages that may require taking out a car title loan to cover the tab. Stick to the seafood section of this eatery, and you can get away with $80 per adult, $30 for kids ages 8 to 11, and $15 for little ones ages 3 to 7. Add lobster to the deal, and those prices jump to $115, $40, and $20, respectively. Toddlers and infants aren't invited to the prawn party.

As the name hollers out loud and clear, there's crab in the trays at Crab House, in the form of Dungeness crab, jumbo crab legs, and blue crab galore. Round out the arrangement with fish, seafood, and shellfish, and you have the makings of an indoor oceanside picnic in the heart of the Big Apple. And if you spring for the lobster version, you can add steamed lobster and lobster mac and cheese to the tabletop. You'll find beef and chicken options with both iterations, a happy circumstance for the non-pescatarians in your party. If you're looking for signs that you're at a bad buffet, you won't find them here; a 4.4-star average crossing more than 1,100 reviews on Yelp glorifies the food and the service, making your super buffet spending a pure pleasure.

Supreme dining at top-shelf prices awaits buffet fans at Navio in Half Moon Bay, California. It's a Ritz Carlton property, so, of course, the food comes at a premium. Diners of legal age should shore up their cash situation before stopping by since they'll be dropping a mad $199 for the privilege of eating all they can from the weekend brunch buffet. Bringing along a younger guest to share in the culinary celebration? Kids can pass through the velvet ropes for a not-much-better $149. This is an occasion when all you can eat means eat all you can and then some.

What does a platinum card-choking brunch spread look like? At Navio, it includes upscale fare like caviar tastings, pan-seared scallops, and perhaps the most intriguing item on the menu, aquaponic farm leaves, which are essentially lettuce leaves grown using water instead of soil. Planted among the chocolate chip pancakes and Belgian waffles you could find at any IHOP on the planet, you'll also have access to Wagyu beef sliders, beef tenderloin, and a tower of desserts that sound unimpressive for the price. Though a solid 4-star Yelp average among less than 900 ratings seems encouraging, reading reviews about the food being less than stellar is a clue that you could spend far less for far better food elsewhere and save the buffet hacks to get your money's worth for later.

Universal City, California, is home to one of the most expensive buffets in the U.S. thanks to Café Sierra Seafood Buffet. At $159 per guest, this seafood banquet could suck up a goodly amount of your paycheck in a single visit. Of course, being attached to a Hilton hotel is a sure sign you won't be able afford a plate with what's left on last year's Christmas Visa stocking stuffer from Grandma and Grandpa. But a price this far north of $100 seems unreasonably expensive, even for an unending supply of stomach-fillers. There'd better be something special lying in wait among the heated trays and slicing stations.

After ponying up your supper money, you can count on a roundup of the standard seafood critters like lobster and crab, but you'll also have your pick of sushi rolls and sashimi to take things in a more intriguing direction. By the time you circle around to the adobo chicken, barbecue pork buns, and Korean short ribs, you may have already eaten your fill — be warned! You'll also want to save room for the plentiful desserts, including cake pops and a boba station. With OpenTable reviewers ranking Café Sierra at a 4.3-star average covering more than 1,500 ratings and verbal praise for the atmosphere and the fixings, consider your money well spent at this boisterous buffet.

Remember when going all out at a buffet meant wearing your stretchy pants and fasting the day before? At Four Seasons Edge in Miami, where a visit to the champagne Sunday brunch buffet will cost you $245, it means going all out of money. Not sure you can foot the bill for this one? No worries! You can always slink into the $145 cocktail brunch instead. And if that option still induces sticker shock, head over to the classic brunch buffet, where you'll pay only $115 for as many plates as you can stack up. If you're bringing children along to the classic, they'll run you another $75 if they're 12 and under. It makes the usually eye-popping $18 you'd spend on a combo meal at McDonald's look utterly affordable. Sure, it's a Four Seasons, but yeowch.

The menu on the Edge website mentions a raw seafood bar, tomahawk steaks, custom pasta and paella, and a dessert arrangement. With no greater detail than this, it's a challenge to feel comfortable spending funds on this buffet instead of making a car payment and hitting a Waffle House. More than 1,200 OpenTable reviews grace Edge with a 4.6-star average, but not knowing more about what you can count on enjoying should give all but the ultra-wealthy cause for pause when pulling out the credit card here.

At La Mar by Gastón Acurio in Miami, you'll be getting a netful of seafood while emptying your pockets into the cash register. That's what happens at a buffet where adults pay $135 per seat, which includes a two-hour cocktail service, while diners between the ages of 12 and 20 break open their piggy banks to pay $95, and kids between 6 and 11 years old cough up their allowances at $65 each. This may be one of those places where the youngers stay in the hotel room with a pizza and a babysitter while the grown-ups get their buffet on.

Peruvian and international cuisine served with a side of striking skylines sets the scene for a buffet menu beyond the others. Sushi and salads share stations with classics like empanadas and tiraditos; with signature chaufa aeropuerto, a paella-like dish for the table to share, and an array of desserts on display, this buffet could be a global diner's dream come true. If you're a culinary connoisseur who knows that savoring the good life costs a pretty penny, this Michelin eatery is a likely locale for enjoying fine food that keeps coming to the table.

Don't blink while enjoying the luxe menus at MILA in Miami Beach, Florida, or you might see your life savings flash before your eyes. Savoring a Sunday brunch buffet at this opulent restaurant with rooftop dining options runs between $90 for a non-alcoholic nosh sesh to a stunning $320 for a deluxe Dom Perignon-soaked spread. Experiences for special occasions like New Year's Eve drive the price even higher. If you have a celebration on the calendar that calls for a once-in-a-lifetime spend and you're in Miami Beach for the weekend, MILA may be your place to set up camp.

Aside from the tony cocktails in the higher-priced packages, diners get a grab at stations featuring dips, charcuterie and cheese platters, and fruits and pastries as well as customizable omelets, seafood, meats, and a dessert array chosen by the chef. Yelp reviewers bestow a respectable 4.1-star average among 1,500-plus ratings, with glowing descriptions of the food and the service making the visit worth the outrageous price. The difference between low- and high-end options gives curious eaters a chance to dip a toe into the pool before diving headlong into the delicious possibilities.

Located pretty much in the center of the western United States is Lucky H Buffet, the in-house eatery at Little America Hotel and a shining star among the Salt Lake City, Utah, dining scene. It may sound tempting when you're passing through town on a Saturday, hungry for a steakhouse dinner ... until you see the $59 price tag flashing for the buffet menu. Friday surf-and-turf style dining will run you the same; general breakfast, lunch, brunch, and dinner buffets run between $27 and $45, and children ages 5 to 12 can eat for $15. It's free for the 4-and-under crowd to get in on the all-you-can-eat goodness, though they're not likely to appreciate what's at stake here.

The menu at Lucky H consists of everything you'd find at a Golden Corral or Old Country Buffet. American favorites like French toast, eggs benedict, and cereals for breakfast lovers and carving stations with rice and potatoes for the lunch crowd seem underwhelming and uncreative. A modest 3.7-star average across a trim 94 Yelp reviews doesn't exactly sing the praises of this spot, either. This buffet may let you enjoy your fare within the bounds of your hotel if you're staying at Little America, but you can likely find a better restaurant if you wander around town a bit.

Dining at the Hyatt Regency Waikiki Beach Resort in Honolulu, Hawaii, means having access to a buffet filled with Polynesian delights of all forms and flavors. With adults paying $84 and kids ages 6 to 12 costing $42 each, it may be a costly dining moment for your family. Considering the prices you'd pay for less than all-you-can-eat at other restaurants on the island, you could be getting away with a per-plate cost that's much more favorable, depending on how much you and your children can pack away in one sitting.

What makes this banquet in paradise so pricey? Aside from the island setting and the expense it takes to get there, Asian-inspired creations fill separate barbecue and hot buffet stations, with sushi and soups filling in the gaps. A banchan station provides plant-based sides, and a delightful collection of desserts brings fruit, chocolate, and cheesecake to magical new dimensions of flavor. This may be pricier than a run-of-the-mill buffet, but if you make it one of your high-spend evenings, you and your family can taste the aloha. Beware: The temptation to eat all you can may be too great to pass up, so be sure not to eat so much that you get yourself kicked out of the buffet.

With the word "wagyu" in the name, you know immediately that you can't pay for this dining selection with pocket change. Wagyu House in Chicago lets you graze at four different levels with prices ranging from $38 to $88; each subsequent level unlocks an extra set of selections. The catch here is that your entire party has to agree to the same level — no mix-and-match options available. So if you're riding with a crew who has expensive tastes and you're hoping to slide by with your lower-priced deal, you should either change your plans or change your friends.

You know from the name you'll be slicing into Wagyu steak and its surrounding dishes no matter which option you and your table mates choose. Every step up introduces new forms of this beloved beef stock while bringing seafood and vegetables into the hot pot mix as well. There may be only 600 or so reviews on Yelp, but the 4.3-star average and verbal write-ups speak volumes to the quality of the experience here, a combination of fantastic food and knockout service. For anyone willing to save up for a top-notch buffet, Wagyu House appears to be worth a try, especially if you start at the lower end of the scale.

You don't name a dining station Bacchanal Buffet without expecting visitors to indulge until they're full to the gills. This Las Vegas buffet is part of the Caesar's Palace restaurant portfolio, which does little to comfort you with prices between $65 and $85 for adult guests and between $38 and $47.50 for kids up to age 10. It sounds like a food festival that both honors and belies the classy origins of the buffet.

What do you get for your coins at this den of unending sustenance? The website gives terse descriptions of American dishes, sushi and seafood, Asian and Mediterranean specialties, plus a host of vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free possibilities. It's billed as the largest buffet in Las Vegas, featuring nine cooking stations cranking out platter after platter to get your appetite sated. The 3.9-star average on Yelp may seem low for such a high-priced buffet, but when you consider it comes from a staggering 15,000-plus reviews that go on and on about the large variety of choices, it's actually very impressive. If you're in Vegas and you happen to win a little at whatever might be your game of choice, Bacchanal Buffet could provide a proper meal for celebrating your good fortune.