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Once upon a time, not so long ago, museum-goers with the zeal and audacity to work up an appetite were condemned to go hungry. Or worse, they were forced to shuffle plastic trays through cafeteria lines and scoop bland food from lamp-heated buffets.
Those were the dark ages, but in recent years, institutional cuisine has experienced a renaissance. Museums around the world have connected with seasoned chefs and notable designers to upgrade their eateries, providing culinary sustenance along with intellectual and cultural nourishment. These settings provide ample inspiration for unique and delicious dishes, which can and do take inspiration from any number of sources, such as regional cuisine and local ingredients or the surrounding art, artifacts, and architecture. The plates are sometimes as beautiful and innovative as the works on display.
From casual cafe fare to elegant fine dining, these restaurants and cafes are not only amenities but attractions all their own. Come for the food, and stay for the art at The 25 Best Museum Restaurants.
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25. The Garden Museum Cafe
25. The Garden Museum Café
Location: Garden Museum, London
Drawing inspiration from its very front yard, the café at London's Garden Museum serves specialties according to the season. Items of its own harvest guide the vegetarian menu, which include soups, salads, desserts, and full afternoon tea.
24. Cafe Asia
24. Café Asia
Location: Asian Art Museum, San Francisco
The restaurant at San Francisco's Asian Art Museum offers items and ingredients from all around the East with a Western sensibility. Cashew chicken, BBQ spareribs with bok choy, and seafood long life noodle soup appear on the pan-Asian menu.
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23. Acropolis Museum Restaurant
23. Acropolis Museum Restaurant
Location: Acropolis Museum, Athens, Greece
The Acropolis Museum restaurant serves three meals a day of traditional Greek fare like cheese pies and donor. Stay a while and enjoy views of the ancient sacred site from the terrace dining space. After all, hungriness is godliness.
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22. Ammo
22. AMMO
Location: Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
Hollywood's AMMO opened an outpost at the Hammer Museum, offering daytime dining to the art-appreciative. An abridged version of the restaurant's original menu is featured, including fresh fare like French lentil salad, ham and cheese sandwiches with carmelized shallots, and beautifully grilled asparagus (pictured above).
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21. Palettes
21. Palettes
Location: Denver Art Museum, Denver
If the name is a bit hard to swallow, the food won't be. An early entrant into the scene of fine-dining museum cuisine, chef Kevin Taylor brings worldly dishes to otherwise landlocked tables in Denver, CO. Far-fetched seafood makes striking appearances in crab cakes and Maine lobster rolls, while Cuban sandwiches and gnocchi bolognese exemplify the menu's terrestrial offerings. Take a sampling with the prix-fixe menu.
20. Provenance
20. Mr. Rain's Fun House
Location: American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore, MD
The name alone makes the list, but the inventive and boozy cocktail list help. Menu items like wild boar and rabbit sausage with fingerling potatoes and sauerkraut, crab and mango tartare, and a chorizo burger push this funky establishment into "yes, please" territory. The adjoined museum's collection of self-taught and outsider art make for a scrumptious pairing.
19. Le Georges
19. Le Georges
Location: Centre Pompidou, Paris
At the top of the Renzo Piano-designed Centre Pompidou, undulating structures set in the stark industrial architecture make Le Georges restaurant like the lair of a Bond villain. Order the "crying tiger" for your nemesis, a dish so spicy that it's meant to make him cry, as you choose a more hospitable item from the Asian-inspired menu for yourself. Sip a glass of cognac and cackle menacingly as you take in panoramic views of Paris from the floor-to-ceiling windows or terrace, for soon it will all be yours...all yours. At least, it will if you can get a reservation.
18. Bixby's
18. Bixby's
Location: Missouri History Museum, Forest Park, MO
A rare find for a museum cafe, Bixby's at the Missouri History Museum offers a buffet-style Champagne Brunch. What might seem pedestrian is actually quite honest, whether it be omelets made-to-order or their house-smoked salmon. Bixby's also offers a weekday lunch service for those who choose to linger and an express take-away counter for those who can't stay. As brunch is only offered on Sundays, making reservations is not a bad idea. It's all about the quiche.
17. Gather by D'Amico
17. Gather by D'Amico
Location: Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota
True to its name, Gather is a hub of different cuisines and culinary persoectives. In keeping with the Walker's contemporary enterprises, Gather hosts monthly guest-chefs-in-residence from Minneapolis and beyond, who create new dishes for the restaurant each month. From fish tacos to ravioli and seaweed salad, Gather has built an encylopedia of dishes through local restaurant group D'Amico and visiting talent.
16. Untitled
16. Untitled
Location: Whitney Museum, New York
New York restauranteur-extrordinarie Danny Meyer took on museum food at the MoMA, too. Untitled at the Whitney is a somewhat small space with likewise prices. Kosher staples on the menu like lox, pastrami, and matzo ball soup can be easily blighted by the addition of bacon, ham, or pork sausage to almost any dish for a few measly bucks. L'chaim!
15. Ray's and Stark Bar
15. Ray's and Stark
Location: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles
Ray's at LACMA offers a thoughtful and straightforward culinary enterprise, playing to both nouveau riche tropes (chicken liver with black truffle and crostini or sturgeon in white prosciutto, saffron-apple puree, shaved fennel, pea tendrils, and fennel pollen) as well as haute-cuisine taste-chasers alike (housemade squid ink chitarra pasta with opal basil, serrano chile, tuna bottarga, or kohlrabi hot soup with pink lady apple salad and creme fraiche). The adjoining Stark Bar has a cocktail list so unpretentious that it boldly explains the different grain varieties of whiskey. If there's one thing you will love about Ray's, it will be the bar's ability to act modest in great Hollywood style.
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14. Oleum
14. Oleum
Location: Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona
The vaulted ceilings and breathtaking views from MNAC's Òleum make for a lavish lunch atop Barcelona's picturesque Montjuïc hill. Spanish food and art together mean that you can enjoy tapas with Tàpies.
13. Frank
13. Frank
Location: Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
Named for its architect, Frank Gehry, Frank restaurant builds plates nearly as beautiful and inventive as its surroundings. If chevre croquettes or proscuitto-wrapped quail don't fill you up, try the an-fried gnocchi with grilled artichokes or rosemary-and-roast-garlic-crusted rack of lamb. A world of options is made available by chef Jay Tanuwidjaja, and the selection of art on display includes pieces by Edward Burtynsky, Candida Höfer, and Frank Stella.
12. Museo-Atelier Canova Tadolini Ristorante
12. Museo-Atelier Canova Tadolini Ristorante
Location: Museo-Atelier Canova Tadolini, Rome
When in Rome... take an espresso with an emperor or share a strand of spaghetti carbonara with a goddess at the studio museum of sculptors Antonio Canova and GiulioTadolini. The restaurant dining room is situated in a room densely packed with plaster models and studies, an unusual but highly delicious historical site.
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11. Mr. Rain's Fun House
11. Provenance
Location: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
The name Provenance is not only a pun but a promise—the relatively intimate restaurant uses fresh, local ingredients from traceable producers. Chef Douglas Katz heads the kitchen in creating a varied, international mix of items, from mac and cheese to salad nicoise, plus a rotating menu of items related to current exhibitions.
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10. Musee d'Orsay Resaturant
10. Musee d'Orsay Restaurant
Location: Musee d'Orsay, Paris
Gilded ceilings and decadent chandeliers decorate the century-old dining room of the Musee d'Orsay, where the collection of French Impressionism finds a companion in chef Yann Landureau's traditional French cuisine. While the menu offers delicacies like foie gras and creme brulee, it isn't overly pretentious or prohibitively expensve. It even features a kid's menu, a rare species in the Parisian wilderness.
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9. Ludwig im Museum
9. Ludwig im Museum
Location: Ludwig Museum, Cologne, Germany
While the Ludwig Museum brings together works of 20th-century modernism from all over, including a vast collection of American Pop Art, the restaurant prefers to keep it local with products from regional farms. They earn high marks for butchering meats and stuffing sausages at their very own slaughterhouse. They haven't neglected alternative diets, though, and their vegan and vegetarian menu headers have one item each.
8. Terzo Piano
8. Terzo Piano
Location: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago
Located on the third floor of the Art Institute of Chicago, Terzo Piano has everything: obsure pasta shapes (malloreddus—a pasta shape somewhere between shells and gnocchi, meaning "fat little bulls," served under braised rabbit with chili flake, pine nuts, golden raisins, mint, and parmesan), root vegetables you've never heard of (salsify—a root turnip-like root vegetable, pureed and served with braised shortrib, beet greens, sour cherry, and parsnip), and a bloody mary with meat (soppressata). It shares a chef, Tony Mantuano, with nearby restaurant Spaggia, rated four stars by the Chicago Tribune. To boot, ingredients for the Italian cuisine are sourced from Midwest producers.
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7. The Modern
7. The Modern
Location: MoMA, New York
Another Danny Meyer endeavor, the Modern features French training with the fresh perspective of chef Gabriel Kreuther (see: rabbit-truffle dumplings; squab and foie gras croustillant) and pastry chef Marc Aumont (see: black currant vacherin; pineapple carpaccio). The plates are as beautifully composed as any canvas in the building. The restaurant defended a three-star rating from the New York Times earlier this year.
6. Mitsitam
6. Mitsitam
Location: National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, D.C.
Mitsitam showcases a variety of Native cuisines of the Americas, with a special focus on indigenous ingredients and traditional techniques. Sample red bean and alligator soup from the Northen Woodlands, Mesoamerican fried yucca with cilantro creme, Northwestern salmon head stew with fried tail and dandelion greens, or a Great Plains buffalo-and-duck burger (pictured above). Other dishes on the menu more readily express their colonial influence, like Spanish olives from South America or turkey with cranberry sauce.
5. Hermitage Restaurant
5. Hermitage Restaurant
Location: St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg
The Hermitage Restaurant's two menus and ten dining rooms, each with its own thematic décor inspired by the museum's collection, allow visitors to choose their own adventure. Savor gourmet Russian fare at a round table in the Orb Room, hear a live performance in the Music Hall, or take a European meal in the Caviar Room or VIP Peacock lounge (pictured above).
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4. M. Wells Dinette
4. M. Wells Dinette
Location: MoMA PS1, Long Island City, NY
Formerly located in a classic chrome diner car a few blocks South, M. Wells reopened last fall in a classroom of MoMA PS1's schoolhouse building, serving guests cafeteria-style on long tables and desks. Chef Hugue Dufour, hailing from Montreal's celebrated restaurant Au Pied de Cochon, and his wife, Sarah Obraitis, offer all sorts of offal and off-beat ingredients in refined and decadent preparations. The menu, written daily on a chalkboard, features dishes like escargot-stuffed marrow bones, blood pudding, or any part of a whole goat (as long as no one else has ordered that bit yet). With its lunch-only hours and casual atmosphere, M. Wells won't set you back nearly as much as its older sibling at MoMA.
3. Cafe Sabarsky
3. Café Sabarsky
Location: Neue Gallery, New York
If their collection of Austrian art hasn't already transported you elsewhere, time-travel to turn-of-the-century Vienna in the Neue Gallery's Café Sabarsky. Michelin-starred chef Kurt Guttenbrunner created a menu of traditional Viennese food, including hearty items like Hungarian beef goulash with fresh herbed spätzle and Wiener Schnitzel, or lighter fare like liverwurst sandwiches and smoked trout crepes. For dessert, an antique buffet displays an array of cakes, tarts, and strudels for dessert, which you can wash down with chocolate milk and Schlag (whipped cream).
2. Nerua
2. Nerua
Location: Guggenheim Bilbao, Bilbao, Spain
You won't eat dinner at Nerua; you will have a gastronomic experience. It earned a coveted Michelin Star in its first year, which is not surprising considering that chef Josean Alija earned spurs at the now-defunct El Bulli, once considered by some to be the best restaurant in the world. Familiar and unusual ingredients alike are represented and perfected: start with Iberian pig's tail with green coffee essence, move on to T-bone steak and potatoes, and finish with black olive ashes for dessert. Each dish is plated with utmost care in stunning modernist compositions, while the plates themselves match the irregular and organic forms of the Guggenheim's Frank Gehry building.
1. Cafe d'Art
1. Café d'Art
Location: Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo
Coordinating their eats with their art(s) earns the Hara Museum's Café d'Art the #1 spot on this list. The café's creative pastry chefs make desserts to visually and gastronomically match each exhibition. One of Henry Darger's heroic Vivian Girls was portrayed in pastry for a 2007 exhibition (above).
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