Their official criteria are:

• Quality of ingredients
• Mastery of flavours & techniques
• The personality of the chef in their cuisine
• Value for money**
• Consistency between visits

But yeah, the service and 'experience' are generally at a high level even if they don't directly impact those criteria.

**How can you have value for money when it's so expensive?

A few months back Clare Smyth (Head Chef at Core, a 3* restaurant in London) was on Desert Island Discs, where the topic of fine dining prices was raised.

She is asked about the price of fine dining (£195+ tasting menu at Core). Does she have any qualms about the cost during a cost of living crisis?

Here answer, paraphrased, was "No. We have seats for 54 paying customers, who will be served by 57 members of staff. And those staff are the absolute top of their game. Also, the ingredients we use are the finest too and we pay a fair price for them. It's actually quite good value for money, you would pay double that for a similar experience in Paris."

Now, someone may still sit there and think "not value for me", and that's fine. But when you start exploring all the little things that make a place like that tick you do see how a lot more is needed to keep it going.