21 courses, £900 for two and I StIll went home hungry!

Statisticians will have a feast working out how much each mouthful costs at the araki.

Mind you, their work will be easier because most of the 21 courses are swallowed whole — a tiny piece of raw tuna here, some cornish turbot topped with albanian caviar there, all accompanied by traditional Japanese bowing and scraping.

and a bill that cocks a snook at the notion of austerity.

Welcome to Britain’s most expensive restaurant, where dinner for two with a couple of glasses of champagne, a bottle of wine and 12.5 per cent service comes in at around £900. For the privilege of dining here, you must pay a deposit of £300 up front and the average bottle of wine costs £110.

But first you need to book a table. Or, rather, a seat at the cypress wood sushi counter, where there are just nine places for the two sittings each evening — one at 6pm, the other at 8.30pm. so if you’re a couple hoping to dine at 8.30pm, you are looking at late november.

Which is good news for ‘sushi Master’ Mitsuhiro araki, 51, who, with his wife, Yoko, and one other assistant produces an ‘ omakase’ (meaning ‘leave it up to you’) menu, comprising solely of seafood and shellfish, most of which isn’t actually cooked at all.

Earlier this month, Mr araki’s restaurant in London’s Mayfair was awarded three Michelin stars, with the inspectors describing his sushi as ‘simply divine’.

Miraculously, when i call to make a booking i’m told there’s a space at 6pm. so i squeeze in between two men on one side and a man and woman on a blind date on the other.

sadly, the ‘Master’ is nowhere to be seen. He’s on holiday, but one of his Japanese proteges is in charge, helped by two assistants. three other members of staff hover disconcertingly behind us nine diners, retrieving napkins should they fall to the ground and handing out hot towels.

THERE’S not much in the way of atmosphere. it’s brightly-lit, minimalist and entirely focused on the would-be ‘master’ and his razor-sharp, 2ft long knife.

We’ve all read the rules; they’re spelt out in no uncertain terms on the araki website — a list of 16 booking conditions.

‘the only way of making a booking is by telephone’; dietary requirements are ‘accommodated to a certain degree’ but ‘we cannot cater for vegetarians or persons who have trouble with raw fish’, and if ‘persons are found to have too many restrictions on the day of the booking we will not be able to serve them, and individuals will be charged nonetheless’; ‘anyone turning up more than 30 minutes late forfeits their deposit and the meal, no exceptions.’ When we’re sitting comfortably, the show begins. the protégé asks if there’s anything we can’t eat and the woman next to me says ‘fish’. Which breaks the ice a little.

and then we’re off, with three minuscule starters, followed by what the chef calls the ‘main event’ — slivers of raw fish on a roll of rice. it is requested that we eat everything with our bare hands.

sometimes, the sushi is placed directly on the counter and we are instructed to pick it up using three fingers and then turn it over so that the fish comes into contact with our tongues before the rice.

there’s spanish tuna with flakes of white truffle, seared yellow tail, wild king salmon from new Zealand, clams wrapped in seaweed, seared Dutch eel, south african squid, and French abalone steamed for six hours.

it’s all delicious, if a touch repetitive. Each morsel comes with a smear of wasabi tucked under the fish on warm, sticky rice. and that’s it. My favourite is the squid that has a slight barbecue flavour. i am tempted to ask for seconds. ‘Give me your hand,’ the chef says from time to time, and we do so as if receiving Holy communion. He bows and places the sushi on our fingers and urges us to eat immediately ‘while warm’.

the blind date couple drink champagne and seem to be getting on fine, while i order the cheapest glass of white wine (£26). no one appears to have gone for the 2013 Le Montrachet Grand cru at £2,200 a bottle.

then, just as the chef is explaining how the cornish turbot is killed so that the blood is drained from the fish so fast that no ‘stress hormones are released’, a man at the end of the counter turns white and starts to bend double.

‘are you going to faint, sir?’ asks an assistant, as the man staggers out helped by his friend and slumps on the pavement in the rain while someone calls an ambulance.

But the show must go on. Back at the altar (sorry, counter), i hear the blonde woman on the blind date say: ‘i’m an atheist and believe that when i’m dead i’m dead.’ she’s wearing a sparkly watch and carries a large box of designer ecigarettes. suddenly, she gives her new friend a kiss on the cheek and says: ‘thanks for this.’

the departure of the unwell diner seems to unite those of us who remain. it turns out that the man on the blind date is a friend of spencer Matthews, the reality tV star and brother-in-law of Pippa Middleton. He and his date have been set up by ‘Jenny’, their shared hairdresser.

We all agree that dining at the araki — even without the medical emergency — is an ‘experience’, but i can’t help wondering what planet the Michelin Guide inspectors live on. Does value for money ever come into the equation?

Don’t get me wrong, i love a starched white table cloth and a tail-coated sommelier banging on about a wine’s floral notes and long finishes. But i can do without the rules and regulations of so many of today’s most sought-after establishments, the pomposity, the disapproval if you dare ask for a pepper mill, and the feeling that you’re lucky to be there.

to be fair to the araki, there’s little of the above (apart from the ‘rules’). Even so, it comes as a shock to be told at 8pm that we must leave the premises because the next nine diners are due to arrive for the 8.30pm sitting.

apparently, Mr araki was keen to have a base in Britain so he and his wife could be near their daughter, who is at boarding school in this country. thanks to his Michelin coronation, he must be having no problems paying the fees.

the Michelin guides, with their distinctive red covers, were launched in 1900 when the car tyre brothers, Edouard and andre Michelin, published their first guide advising French motorists on tyre repair, petrol stations and restaurants ‘ worth a special journey’ — but it wasn’t until 1926 that it began awarding stars.

today, while legions of chefs and restaurant owners still aspire to a Michelin star, and drive themselves insane in the process (a 44-yearold French chef shot himself last year amid rumours the stress of retaining his Michelin stars had got out of control), there are others who think the whole business has become, well, indigestible.

As aDaM raphael, joint editor of the Good Hotel Guide, puts it: ‘Michelin has lost its way. its influence on chefs is damaging, not least because it encourages presentation over taste, style over cooking, oleaginous service over an honest welcome.’

Perhaps that’s why French chef sebastien Bras of the three-star Le suquet restaurant in Laguiole, southern France last month asked to be dropped from the guide.

Predictably, rebecca Burr, editor of the Michelin Guide: Great Britain and ireland, doesn’t see it like that. ‘ Michelin stars are almost exclusively about the food on the plate,’ she says.

‘as you move from one star to two to three, there may be more imagination and creativity shown, but the most important factor is the food, not the crockery used.’

as we leave the araki, a paramedic is still in attendance and the blind date couple appear to be holding hands. it’s hard to imagine where he might take her for a second date. Has he peaked too soon?

Perhaps he could whisk her down to Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck at Bray in Berkshire, where the set menu (known as the ‘journey’ and now the second most expensive restaurant in Britain) costs a mere £275 a head.

Me? i get home and make some toast. to borrow a phrase from Mrs thatcher, ‘fact is stranger than fiction’ in the culinary firmament. imagine spending £450 on dinner and still going to bed hungry.

It has THREE Michelin stars. But Britain’s most expensive restaurant leaves our writer’s tummy as empty as his wallet