The other evening, I had the tasting menu at L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon, the New York branch of the renowned chef’s global franchise. Atelier means “studio” or “workshop,” so it’s supposed to be casual—sort of. You can come here in a Chanel suit or jeans. The restaurant sets out to achieve a different tone from such exalted temples of gastronomy as Per Se, Daniel or Jean Georges: There’s counter seating and an open kitchen serving small tasting plates along the lines of Japanese omakase and Spanish tapas.

If atelier signifies “workshop,” then this one is for Harry Winston. You might think Soho would be the right location for an atelier; instead, it’s in the Four Seasons Hotel. The sleek dining room has a ceiling two or three stories high, as well as blond wood paneling, four islands of black banquettes and red, lacquered vases filled with palm fronds. In the back, the open kitchen has a 20-seat counter and is manned by cooks in chic dark gray-black outfits and matching red-trimmed caps.

“I can’t figure out what or how much to order,” my companion commented as we looked at the menu of 22 “tasting” dishes (ranging from sea urchin in lobster gelée to frogs’ legs), 10 appetizers and seven main courses. We were having an early dinner before a concert at Carnegie Hall, so he suggested that we simplify matters by ordering the tasting menu with wine pairings. Our waitress assured us that we would be out with plenty of time to spare. I glanced at the tasting menu briefly, without bothering to put my glasses on.

A demitasse of an intense chestnut soup laced with chunks of roast chestnut kicked off the meal, followed by tuna tartare topped with a raw quail egg placed on a disk of red pepper confit. It was sparkling and jewel-like, painstakingly decorated with red and green strips of minutely sliced chives and Serrano ham placed around it like reeds. It must have taken hours to cut these. This came with a tasting of a lovely Chablis, Laurent Tribut 2005. A mousse of duck foie gras was topped with slices of black truffle and pieces of gold leaf. Did the gold leaf do anything for the taste? No. (I should have stashed it in my wallet for later.) With this, we drank a Sauternes, Château Rieussec 2002.

By now, we were tasting at a trot. Next: a sea scallop in a nutty seaweed butter in an orange shell. Barreling along came langoustine ravioli, hidden under a bird’s nest of finely cut black truffle and paired, interestingly, with a Gigondas, a robust, chewy red wine. At this point, we let the servers know that they could slacken the pace. No, we didn’t have to be out of there by 7:15!

An Alsatian Riesling went nicely with amadai, a white-fleshed Japanese fish in a subtle yuzu broth laced with lily bulbs. Kobe beef, melting with fat, was marvelous, accompanied by a red casserole of Robuchon’s famous mashed potatoes—three parts potato to one part butter—and a Napa Valley claret. After a “pre-dessert”—a lemon mascarpone mousse in a shot glass—our waitress appeared with another bottle. “And now the pièce de résistance for the rice pudding,” she said, without a trace of irony, as she poured a Santa Julia from Argentina, a light late-harvest wine.

“The rice pudding is dangerously close to foam,” my companion said after a mouthful.

So, alas, was I. The bill had arrived, along with a copy of our tasting menu—eight courses, if you count the amuse bouche. Now I put my glasses on to make sure I’d read it correctly: $813.60. When I’d looked at the menu, I’d misread $190 as $100. Wine pairings added another $125 per person.

Next to this, Gordon Ramsay’s seven courses for $110 comes in as a bargain. Picholine serves seven courses for $110; Jean Georges does seven for $128. Restaurant Daniel gives you just six courses, for $155; Bouley also serves six courses, for $95. Le Bernardin’s eight-course menu is $180 ($320 with wine pairings). Gramercy Tavern’s seven-course menu is a comparative steal at $98.

Last month, Per Se announced that it would begin serving only a nine-course menu for dinner. The cost is $250 and includes a 20 percent gratuity. But after tax and tip are added for Robuchon’s tasting menu (which you can eat at the counter), the price works out to about the same.

Per Se makes no claim to casual dining, of course: It’s a shrine to haute cuisine. When I had a tasting menu, it took the same length of time as a performance of Wagner’s Siegfried. Four of us sat down at 6 p.m., and we staggered to our feet shortly after 11. I lost count of the courses—and there were many more than nine. Our tasting-menu dinner in the “atelier” (accelerated, obviously, because of the concert) lasted an hour and 20 minutes.

The next morning, still smarting from the expense of our meal at Robuchon, I looked up the prices online of the wines we’d tasted in our $125 pairings. The average retail price of those seven wines worked out to around $28 a bottle (wholesale, they’d cost a lot less). We’d each consumed roughly the equivalent of four-fifths of a bottle. It’s no secret that restaurants routinely mark up their wines around 300 percent. But this was some markup! When you order a tasting menu, you can see the expensive ingredients—such as foie gras, caviar and Kobe beef—that drive up the price. When it comes to wine pairings, you’re on your own.

After eating at Robuchon, the galloping gourmets set off down 57th Street for Carnegie Hall feeling like we’d just had Thanksgiving dinner. But it was a great meal, albeit as casual as a mink coat over jeans.

Now he's seen how well you spend money, and he wants you to start money-laundering full-time. Don't sweat it, toots. This may be a time of "bust" rather than boom, and yet it's never been easier to blow your wad on high-priced accessories. The notorious Victoria's Secret diamond-

encrusted bra ($10 million-talk about bust!) and Stuart Weitzman's bejeweled evening sandals ($1 million, currently on "sale" at Harrods) are just the tip of this gauche and excessive iceberg. So stop whining and start spending!

Throw a couple of gruff English bulldogs ($1,800 and up per pooch from Knowbull Bulldogs, 718-217-4120) into your snazzy 2002 Aston Martin Volante convertible ($186,780, Miller Motorcars, 203-629-3890) and hit Madison Avenue. First stop: Hermès. You need a nifty bag to tote your cash: like, say, a Constance purse with diamond-encrusted H-clasp ($80,000). If you hate the upholstery in your Aston Martin, Hermès will be happy to consider re-upholstering the whole thing in croc for some ungodly amount of money. (Their special-requests department has never done a car, but they have custom re-upholstered jets and yachts for sums too ridiculous to name. All requests must go through the Hermès Paris office.) Also keep in mind that nearby Bergdorf Goodman (754 Fifth Avenue) can re-upholster you : a Maggie Norris custom-made silk corset there retails for $20,000. Vamp down Fifth Avenue in your rhinestone-encrusted Manolo Blahnik boots ($5,800), soaking up admiration for your newly cinched waist, to Harry Winston (718 Fifth Avenue), where the 5.54-carat pumpkin diamond ring that Halle Berry sported on Oscar night awaits you. The when-Harry-met-Halle ring can be yours for three million bucks. Harry will design a new mount (how 'bout an erection setting?) and resize the ring for no additional charge. Bling, bling!

Over to Mont Blanc (595 Madison Avenue), where you can launder $4,900 on a pen. Yes, a fountain pen. The folks at Mont Blanc have collaborated with porcelain craftsmen and goldsmiths to create a Marquise de Pompadour number. This dildo-sized writing instrument comes in a limited edition of 888 and is so heavy it can be used to stun intruders-or Russian boyfriends. (Just make sure to keep the cap on when you toss it in the aforementioned Hermès bag, or you'll be in for a different, far more difficult kind of laundering.)

You've just plowed through about $3.5 million. If that's not enough, then buy Boris his own $73,000 submarine. Check it out at www.hammacherschlemmer.com. If you find you still have money to launder, you can commission Hermès to re-upholster the interior in croc. If Boris starts having mood swings, hop in the submarine and escape up the Hudson to find what we all want, a simpler life.

A spokeswoman for the Limited confirmed the sale, which sources said was for about $32 million. She would not confirm the price or identify the buyer–who one broker claimed was an Internet executive. Mr. Wexner did not return calls.

According to Robert Najdek, a Limited employee who manages 25 East 78th Street, the deal was done very quickly. "The final walk-through is the week of [June 12]," he said. Limited employees began moving out of the office right after Memorial Day, said Mr. Najdek.

The Italian Renaissance five-story limestone-and-brick building, which was built by McKim, Mead and White for railroad executive Stuyvesant Fish, the son of Hamilton Fish, is considered a gem. Mr. Wexner's company purchased it in 1985 for $13.25 million for use as office space; the building now has an ultramodern interior. The Limited Inc. owns the clothing stores Express, the Limited, Structure, Henri Bendel and Lane Bryant, as well as an 84 percent interest in Intimate Brands, which operates Victoria's Secret, Bath and Body Works and White Barn Candle Company.

"He's toyed with the idea of selling it for a long time," said Anne Snee of the Corcoran Group. "The property has been through every brokerage office."

One broker said she remembered the price being as high as $35 million around 1989. Then, in 1992, Mr. Wexner wanted $22.5 million for the home, but couldn't get that much. In the mid-90's, the house came back on the market for $18 million, but brokers' records say that it was taken off the market in June 1998 and has not been listed for sale since.

"If, in fact, they did pay $32 million, that is truly idiotic," said Jed Garfield of Leslie J. Garfield and Co. "If they had any kind of market knowledge at all they would never pay that number for that piece of property. It has no bearing in reality."

"It doesn't sound that out of whack to me," said another broker. "The building is enormous and it is on the best corner." The second floor is a "C.E.O. floor," according to brokers' description, and there are offices and conference rooms on every floor.

It is not the first time that Mr. Wexner has bought and sold property at remarkably high prices in Manhattan. In 1991, shortly after East and West Germany had reunited, the German government was looking for an impressive place for its ambassador and chose Mr. Wexner's townhouse at 5 East 74th Street, for which it paid $12 million.

In 1989, Mr. Wexner bought 9 East 71st Street, the former Birch Wathen School, for an estimated $13.2 million and lavishly renovated it with heated sidewalk, guest suites on the fourth floor, and an oval-shaped, two-story reception room. Mr. Wexner never actually lived in the townhouse, because he got married in 1993 and his wife, Abigail, wanted to raise their two young children in Columbus, Ohio.

WAR OF THE WINSTONS: WILL $27 MILLION SALE OF HARRY'S HOME SPARK ANOTHER BATTLE? In 1940, Harry Winston traded a necklace for what was then a 32-acre sprawl in Scarsdale, a half an hour north of the city off the brand-new Hutchinson Parkway. The 1911 estate had a pool, clay tennis courts and a house with four master bedrooms and three guest rooms, and its own well. Winston, who resided at 927 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, named it Stonwin Farm (note the inversion of syllables) and commenced throwing elaborate weekend parties.

"I remember lots of maharajahs," his son Ronald Winston told The Observer . "The president of the Ivory Coast came in the early days of independence, and captains of industry came."

Officials of the Village of Scarsdale claim that Harry Winston wanted Stonwin Farm to be donated to the village of Scarsdale after he and his wife passed away, and for the land to be called Winston Park. But that never happened. On May 24, Ronald Winston, 59, president and chief executive of Harry Winston, Inc., put Stonwin Farm on the market for $27 million. And work is about to begin to turn half of the property into a luxury home development.

The dissolution of Harry Winston's empire–he died in 1978, and his wife, Edna, died in 1986–has embattled the two Winston boys. Harry Winston split his estate equally between his two sons, but he gave his elder son Ronald his half outright, while Bruce's share was to be left in the form of a trust. According to Ronald, Bruce drew a salary but never really worked for Harry Winston, Inc.

The brothers have been fighting since 1990–when Bruce and his lawyer, Edward H. Wohl, went to court demanding to see an accounting of Harry's estate. In 1991, Bruce started demanding that his brother be removed as a trustee of Harry Winston Inc. And in 1998, Bruce forced Ronald to put part of the company on the market. Ronald did, but he insists that he intends to be the buyer.

Stonwin Farm is now on only about 15 private acres. The rest, according to the New York Law Journal , was successfully given by Harry Winston to Scarsdale in three parcels before he died: 8 acres in 1972; 4.6 acres in 1974; and 3.9 acres in 1975. In the final years of Edna Winston's life, her sons were made her conservators. Using that power, they purchased the farm from their mother's estate for a reported $775,000. According to Ronald, the two brothers lived there together for approximately six years. Then, around 1986, Ronald bought Bruce's share of the Stonwin estate for $1.8 million. "He forced me to buy him out," said Ronald. "It was his call. I wanted it to stay in the family as two brothers co-owning it."

The brothers teamed up in a lawsuit against Scarsdale after the village put its 16 acres of Stonwin up for sale. The Glickenhaus-Judelson Real Estate Partnership, a developer that primarily builds luxury homes in Westchester, signed a contract with the village to buy the property for $3.7 million with the intent to build 13 large homes. In court appeals that have extended over the past 13 years, the Winston boys have asserted that under the terms of their father's gift, the property was limited to park, recreational or educational purposes. The courts have disagreed. Although the brothers claim that their father left the property to the village because he wanted to do something good for a village he had lived in for almost 40 years, he left the land in unrestricted deeds, meaning essentially that the land was given with no strings attached. In this way, he got the maximum tax write-offs.

According to Mark Bench, the mayor of Scarsdale, if the village had been given the entire 32-acre estate it would have used it as a park. "We've never lost any appeal on this," he said, "virtually all of the courts have agreed with us." Mayor Bench said the land is only now beginning to be developed by Glickenhaus-Judelson. "And, of course, it was purchased for $3.7 million 13 years ago," he said. "Imagine how much more it would be worth now."

In spite of the conflict, Mayor Bench said that he is very grateful to Harry Winston. Scarsdale has already purchased playing fields in the center of town with the sale money from the Winston estate. "We wanted to call them the Harry Winston Diamonds," the mayor said. But they have instead been named the Harry Winston Fields, because not all are baseball fields.

Ronald said he is selling the home mostly because expansion in Asia and Europe has kept him out of the country. Harry Winston is about to open a 6,000-square-foot store in Tokyo, next to Tiffany's. "When I'm here I use it all the time on weekends," said Ronald, who also has a townhouse on 74th Street that he bought for $1.06 million in the mid-80's, in a deal brokered by Patricia Burnham of P.S. Burnham Inc., who will also handle the Stonwin deal. "But last year I was gone 200 days of the year."

"That's news to me," said Ed Wohl, Bruce's lawyer for over 20 years, when told that Ronald had put the Stonwin Farm on the market. But not necessarily the good kind. "Bruce doesn't have any interest in it."

On the other hand, according to Ronald, his brother "has sued me for everything under the sun."

150 East 69th Street (Imperial House)

Two-bed, two-bath, 1,756-square-foot co-op.

Asking: $895,000. Selling: $880,000.

Charges: $1,623; 60 percent tax deductible.

Time on the market: 17 weeks.

WHERE KIDS COVET A KEY TO THE PLAYGROUND This Fisher Brothers building, called the Imperial House, has a large circular driveway. Nonetheless, the kids "were really cramped," said Pamela Belsky of the Corcoran Group, who relocated the family that sold this three-bedroom apartment, with a large, formal dining room and a balcony, on the south corner of the building. Ms. Belsky and her partner, Eileen Foy, shipped them off to private-school-laden Carnegie Hill. Their new building even has a private playground. "The kids were really excited about their new home," said Ms. Belsky. "They couldn't wait to play on all that stuff." Then, the broker duo ushered an older couple into the family's former apartment, for a bit of a bargain: Most of the three-bedroom apartments in this building go for at least several hundred-thousand more.

229 West 71st Street

Asking: $1.8 million. Selling: $1.8 million.

Four-story, approximately 4,000-square-foot townhouse.

Time on the market: two months.

MUSICAL HIGHCHAIRS "They'll be back," said Jeannette Bernstein, a broker with Fenwick-Keats Realty, about the couple who sold this 18-foot-wide townhouse. Though they own another piece of property in Manhattan, the couple is leaving the city, partially because of business and partially because of the city's sketchy public school system. "They love the city," emphasized the broker. The townhouse, between West End Avenue and Broadway, is not much to look at from the street. "It is a Federal-style townhouse that is sort of lost in the middle of the block, surrounded by all these brownstones," said Ms. Bernstein. But inside, there's a center staircase, six bedrooms, six and a half baths; out back, there's a well-maintained garden. The new owners, a young couple with two kids, took ownership on May 25. They have a fighting chance.

MIDTOWN WEST

2 Columbus Avenue

Three-bed, 2.5-bath, 1,740-square-foot condo.

Asking: $1.295 million. Selling: $1.175 million.

Charges: $1,121. Taxes: $73.

Time on the market: three months.

ADIOS, AMIGO; HELLO, BABY GRAND It took a Mexican aristocrat less than a year of living just west of Columbus Circle (in this brand-new, perk-heavy building on the corner of 59th Street) to decide that the old country wasn't so bad. He put this three-bedroom apartment with marble bathrooms and a washer and dryer on the market and moved back to his family's hacienda. At the same time, a couple–a dot-commer and a dentist–decided it was time to jump the Hudson River from New Jersey. They wanted a condo (who wants to deal with a co-op board?) on the Upper West Side (the dentist, who will keep his practice in Jersey, wanted to be near the bridge for the commute). Their broker, Ruben Mercado of DG Neary Realty, showed them about 15 apartments. This one could accommodate their baby grand.

TURTLE BAY

860 U.N. Plaza

Two-bed, two-bath, 1,850-square-foot co-op.

Asking: $850,000. Selling: $800,000.

Charges: $1,921; 41 percent tax deductible.

Time on the market: 2.5 months.

CAUTION: DATED DECOR MAY BE HARMFUL TO YOUR WALLET This apartment near 48th Street, with views of the gardens at the United Nations and the East River–and soon Trump World Tower to the south–was just sold by the estate of Dr. Ernst Wynder, who, in 1953, was one of the first people to link smoking to cancer. Four years later, the Surgeon General's office issued its first warning that excessive smoking may cause lung cancer. And about 10 years after that, he moved into this apartment right after the building went up. Wynder, who was also the founder and former president of the American Health Foundation, whose research is focused on the prevention of chronic diseases, died last July at the age of 77. His widow, Sandra, has moved to Greenwich Village, said Joanna Simon, a broker with Fox Residential Group who is representing the Wynder estate. But the apartment was holding onto its past. "The decorating was very heavy and dramatic," said one broker, trying to explain why many apartment shoppers were turned off by the place. "It wasn't the furniture so much but the paneling they had installed. A number of people were interested, but they felt it would cost too much to redecorate." Diane Dickenson, also of Fox Residential Group, who represented the buyers, agreed. "I'm sure it was great at the time, but it made the space seem much smaller and heavier then it really was." The buyers were not deterred. According to Ms. Dickenson, they have stripped the paneling, redone the floors and painted the apartment in bright shades.