Where art tastes great

By Farhad Heydari

updated 5:36 p.m. ET Jan. 19, 2008

When the late satirist Peter De Vries launched into a trademark condemnation of the morganatic marriage between art and food, his appraisal seemed downright prophetic. “The murals in restaurants,” the prolific author declared, “are on par with the food in museums.” But while the brilliant analogy might have once been accurate, it no longer rings true for many museums.

From Barcelona to Boston and Seattle to Singapore, top-rated chefs and visionary restaurateurs together with perspicacious museum directors are collaborating on multi-million dollar projects that are bringing haute gastronomy into the once sober sanctuaries of culture. These are not glorified cafeteria-style eateries. Created in partnership with leading architecture firms, catering consultants and interior designers, they’re rousing culinary outposts that, in some cases, overshadow the very paintings, sculptures and objet trouvés these cultural institutions were built to showcase.

“We’re now getting more interest from visitors about the menu at Oleum than we are about our collection,” says a dispirited cicerone at Barcelona’s Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, referring to the much trumpeted in-house eatery, which boasts seasonal Mediterranean fare and superb views of the city’s skyline from its perch on Montjüic hill. But gazing outward at Plaça d’Espany’s Venetian towers, the guide concedes, “Even Romanesque paintings can’t compare with this view or the tasty food.”

The same is true at the futuristic Centre Pompidou in Paris, where each day the hip crowd settles in for the inventive Eurasian portions of restaurateur Thierry Costes, complemented by eye-catching panoramas of the French capital as far as Sacré-Coeur from the raw-boned sixth-floor eatery, Georges. And it’s a similar story on this side of the Atlantic. At 20•21 Restaurant, housed in the Herzog & de Meuron-designed addition to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, chic epicures wade into petite fusion rations conceived by Wolfgang Puck while taking in floor-to-ceiling views of downtown Minneapolis.

In an attempt to provide a more complete and fulfilling visitor experience and to boost their revenues and attract prospective donors, more and more cultural institutions are broadening their appeal to attract more than just staid culture vultures. So in addition to bookshops that sell much more than coffee-table tomes and cafés that double as moody bars-cum-lounges, museums are incorporating various dining options, many of them high-end, to improve the overall experience, say industry observers.

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“Museums of all types and sizes are always exploring ways to provide a dynamic and fulfilling visitor experience to visitors with varying interests,” says Ford Bell, the President of the Washington, D.C.-based Association of Museums. “One element of that is providing unique dining experiences.”

© Österreicher im MAK At Vienna's Museum of Applied Arts, acclaimed local chef Helmut Österreicher, recipient of the "Cook of the Decade" award by Gault Millau, gives Viennese cuisine a contemporary spin with dishes such as ribbon noodles with pumpkin, curry sauce and trout caviar; and saddle of venison with ginger-red cabbage and pepper polenta.

In fact, according to a recent survey by the AAM, 22 percent of their members have some sort of foodservice in-house; that number jumps to 54 percent for art museums, which have full-service restaurants, according to the master’s thesis of Crissa Van Vleck Williams at John F. Kennedy University.

Danny Meyer’s The Modern at New York’s refurbished MoMA overlooks the celebrated courtyard sculpture garden and features the innovative Alsatian handiwork of chef Gabriel Kreuther, served within eyeshot of Picassos, Calders and Mirós. Showered with praise since its opening in 2004, it heralded in a new age of über upper-echelon eateries where it’s no longer uncommon to find main courses reaching the $40 barrier, which is exactly what a 1¾-ounce appetizer portion of lobster costs.

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