Quality meat? Quality cooking? Staff and other overhead costs? Etc.
In: Economics
A high end steak actually has pretty low margin as far as food ingredient costs vs. customer price is concerned. Typically for restaurants is that a meal costs about 3x the ingredient cost, but a top steak might be only 2x or even less.
The meat you get at a top steakhouse is prime beef, which is well marbled and only the top 1% of all beef. The meat is then aged, either dry or wet, for 30 days or more. Dry aging means the meat loses water weight as it dries out, and either case the outer layers that decompose need to be trimmed off a steak so the actual usable meat relative to the initial cost for the primal cut is only a portion (eg a 30 lb. cut of beef might only become 20 1-lb. steaks). So that steak itself might cost $30-50.
The cooking itself is typical pretty minimal, often just some salt and pepper and then put under a salamander broiler, so the labor costs are less than many other dishes, especially at that price point for an entree.
But steakhouses are typically fancy, prime location restaurants so the rent and other costs are high. And steakhouses make up their margins with the expensive sides (the $12 baked potato that cost the restaurant $1, the $15 creamed spinach, $30 truffle mac & cheese) and the alcohol, whether the expensive cocktails or bottles of wine.
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