Two days ago, Felix Salmon posted his Restaurant Pretentiousness Ratio, a formula which takes the prices of a wine list in relation to the prices of entrees to yield a scientific level of pretentiousness for any restaurant. For example Mermaid Inn has a low ratio of 1.6 while Cafe Gray has a whopping 4.7. Take what you will from the ratio, but as an entertaining snow day diversion at Eater HQ we decided to crunch the numbers on a sampling of restaurants around town to see the math in action. But first, the original formula:

RPR=W/E
W is what you might call the quarter-median wine price: take the red wines only (to make things a bit more manageable) and find the price of the wine such that 25% of the wines on the list are cheaper, and 75% of the wines on the list are more expensive.
E is simply the average price of a main course.

Landmarc: Quarter-Median Wine Price: $42/ Average Entree Price $25 = 1.68 ratio

Balthazar: Quarter-Median Wine Price: $55/ Average Entree Price: $24 = 2.29 ratio

Frankies Spuntino: Quarter-Median Wine Price: $30/ Average Entree Price: $15 = 2.0 ratio

Fiamma: Quarter-Median Wine Price: $110/ Average Entree Price: $35 (estimate) = 3.14 ratio

Le Cirque: Quarter-Median Wine Price: $204 / Average Entree Price $49 = 4.16 ratio

Filed under Manhattan: Lower East Side, Manhattan: Midtown East/Kips Bay, Manhattan: Soho, Manhattan: Theatre District/Times Square, NY FAQ: Web Tools, Balthazar, Fiamma, Frankies Spuntino, Landmarc, Le Cirque

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