The article is from 2016, and when it came out I remember a ton of industry folks griefing the owner for basically failing to understand the market and understand what people were willing to pay for. Weird to see this on HN...
"But then, of course, there are the people who complain that your $29 chicken dish is "amazing… but it's too expensive for chicken."
"people complaining" means the owner didn't understand the market. At all. If you don't have enough people willing to pay 40$ for a dish that is only profitable at that price point, then you really shouldn't keep trying to sell a dish like that.