I’m often asked by people with a little extra money to burn which restaurants are best for celebrating special occasions – the kind where it’s okay to overdress and play aristocrat for an evening. Among the most formal that usually come to mind are Addison, El Bizcocho, Mille Fleurs and A.R. Valentien; although, last week I added to the list an exceptional prospect: the newly refurbished Sky Room perched on the tenth floor of the La Valencia Hotel.

Prior to its redo, the 30-year-old restaurant resembled something out of a B-grade Titanic movie, replete with heavy fabrics and outdated chandeliers. Renovation has ushered in smoked-mirrors, subdued pinpoint halogen lighting, a small glass bar and a wine preservation system that swaps oxygen with CO2 for preserving the life of open bottles by 400 percent, according to our sommelier-certified waiter. The view of La Jolla Cove is impeccable. And with only 10 tables placed throughout the room, a feeling of intimate exclusivity prevails as you disembark from the hotel’s circa 1930 elevator operated by a full-time attendant.

The menu encompasses the most expensive appetizer in San Diego called Stars in the Sky, tailored for two. Count yourself among the blueblood set if you can shell out $2,100 for Grand Cuvee champagne served in hand-blown Baccarat crystal flutes that you get to keep, plus an ounce of seasonal caviar and Royal Miyagi oysters revealing their natural Kumamoto pearls, which are also for the taking. The starter courses plummet into the $20 range after that.

There we found softened leeks and semi-whipped cream speckled with pricey Sevruga caviar adorning a royal Miyagi (sans the pearl) served atop coarse rock salt and aromatic cinnamon sticks. These medium-sized bivalves, cultured usually on beaches in Canada’s northwest, offer a clean and somewhat fruity flavor, which Chef Vaughan G. Mabee further enhances with a crafty touch of berry dust.

There are no salads on the menu. And nor should there be when you’re luxuriating in gourmet creations that rise to a whole different stratosphere compared to what the common folk eat. This is after all, a special-occasion dinner experience for reveling in that long-overdue work bonus or for impressing the heck out of your significant other. So heirloom tomato carpaccio became the luscious substitution. The green and red tomatoes were joined by fresh, triple cream burrata (soft mozzarella stuffed with softer mozzarella), and finished off with tarragon and truffle oil.

A third appetizer we tried, langoustine soufflé, was tainted by an accompanying chunk of butter-poached Maine lobster that tasted to us like ammonia. It was our only complaint of the evening, yet a serious one. Perhaps a secret ingredient new to our palates was slipped in somewhere? Or did the tail meat get caught in the crossfire during a kitchen cleaning? We couldn’t figure out the culprit. The steaming souffle, however, was airy and outstanding. It’s constructed with French mimolette cheese and sweet bits of the slim orange-colored lobsterette that we call langoustines.

Throughout the entire meal our waiter made confident and faultless suggestions for wine pairing from a list sporting the thickness of a novel. With entrée prices starting at $48 and exceeding $70, it’s best to defer to the astute wait staff for vino choices unless your teeth are stained purple from too much grape knowledge.

A shockingly tender six-ounce filet of Kobe beef from Kobe, Japan matched swimmingly to the black currant overtones of a 1996 Heitz cabernet sauvignon from Napa. The beef is A-5 certified – the top score given to Kobe based on marbling, which means the meat also flies off the charts in terms of richness. So soft and satiny, it practically cut from just the weight of the knife. The plate gave way to a heaven-sent zucchini flower stuffed with foie gras, along with flavor-punching potatoes shaped into little balls and excellent petite vegetables.

My companion saddled up to New Zealand lamb paired with the forest-like notes of a 2004 Talisman Wildcat Vineyard Mountain pinot from Los Caneros. The meat was delectably dark red and featured a chop encircled by the tenderloin. Both were prepared “sous vide,” the French term for cooking ingredients in vacuum-sealed bags to uphold the integrity of their flavors. An artsy bundle of hericot verts, seasonal wild mushrooms and Yorkshire pudding (baked I’m guessing with some top-quality meat drippings hanging around this kitchen) rounded out the plate.

French pastry chef Thomas Gerard creates from scratch every dessert in-house, right down to the oddly appealing popcorn sorbet included in an amuse bouche, to a beautifully concentrated Tahitian vanilla ice cream that rested in a martini glass beneath a mantle of seasonal berries. For that, our waiter recommended Klein Constantia, an after-dinner wine produced for centuries in South Africa, featuring heady flavors of mint and brown sugar followed by a brawny tang. Equally decadent was Godiva white chocolate panna cotta crowned with 23-karat gold leaf and supported by espresso ice cream and a sauce composed of gold dust and cocoa butter.

The Sky Room isn’t only about the view. It’s instead what high-falutin, knock-your-socks-off dining is all about.