NEW YORK — Pablo Picasso’s radical sculptures and Salvador Dali’s experimental films are among the June offerings at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, but that’s not why we’re here.
We’re sampling a different offering - fine dining in a museum restaurant, which happens to be the Modern in MOMA. Restaurateur Danny Meyer and his Union Square Hospitality Group are the creative forces behind the Modern, an elegant establishment with a view of the museum’s sculpture garden and the only museum restaurant in the world with a Michelin star.
We’re seated near a garden window. The service is pleasant and speedy. We order.
The first food to arrive is an amazing pea soup with slow-cooked barley, a Parmesan tuile and cream.
The flavor of the peas is intense and mild at the same time. “It’s a simple thing,” restaurant chef Gabriel Kreuther says in an accent that reveals his Alsatian roots - a heritage he shares with a former employer, restaurateur extraordinaire Jean-Georges Vongerichten. “We use French peas that we take out of their pods. We use the pods in the vegetable broth, and we pass the peas through a juicer. We mix the puree with the broth and add a little butter, cream and pepper and salt … The barley gives it a little texture.”
It definitely beats a stale sandwich and a bag of chips - the staple offering at museums the world over.
“It’s a trend…. It has become a big part of the art museum experience to have a good restaurant,” says Ford Bell, president and chief executive of the American Association of Museums in Washington. “It just rounds out the cultural experience.”
Museum restaurant consultant Arthur M. Manask agrees. “In the past, going to a museum was like going to the ballpark,” Mr. Manask says. “You expect to pay at least $5 for a lousy hot dog. … Traditionally, museums were not where you dined.”
Mr. Manask says the change began slowly, about 10 years ago. Big-name chefs started becoming part of the museum dining scene. At the Denver Art Museum in 1997, Kevin Taylor opened Palettes, a fine-dining restaurant with entrees such as Colorado lamb rib chops with French green lentils, garlic spinach and a jus of red wine, onion and fresh mint.
In 2004, Mr. Kreuther was recruited to head up the Modern after having worked as the executive chef at Ritz-Carlton New York and as chef de cuisine at Restaurant Jean Georges, also in Manhattan.
“It was a challenge. … People at the beginning were very surprised to have good food at a museum restaurant,” Mr. Kreuther says.
In the past four years, attitudes and expectations have changed, and the Modern is packed most nights. Museum restaurant operators from as far away as London visit to see and learn how it’s all done.
“They’re prospecting here because it’s proven that it works,” Mr. Kreuther says.
Along with popular support and interest from museum restaurant operators worldwide, the restaurant has received numerous awards and glowing reviews. It was the James Beard Foundation’s Best New Restaurant in the United States in 2006, and the New York Times has given it three stars. A 2007 Zagat survey calls it “Divine.”
That aptly could describe the Modern’s amazing suckling pig with parsnip puree, roasted pineapple and jus scented with cardamom; it is an adventurous flavor-and-texture combination that worked perfectly. The pineapple was sweet and sour, the puree mild and smooth, and the pig supertender.
Among other top sellers at the Modern are the foie gras terrine, the tuna tartare, the chorizo-crusted cod, and the duck breast with black trumpet marmalade.
Such fine fare is not just for people in New York and Denver to look forward to a fine-dining experience as part of their museum visit. Take the Walker Art Center’s 20.21 restaurant in Minneapolis and the Source in the Newseum in the District; they are creations of celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck. Fine dining also can be found at the Seattle Art Museum and the Getty Center in Los Angeles and in some museums in European cities such as Barcelona, Vienna and Paris.
Mr. Bell says he expects more museums - particularly large art museums - to follow.
It’s not just the sophisticated, cultured visitor who wants a decent museum meal, says Mr. Manask, author of “The Complete Guide to Foodservice in Cultural Institutions.” He says museum restaurant operators are “looking for ways to connect the food with the museum experience. … If it’s a botanic garden, that might mean sustainable and organic food.”
Mr. Kreuther agrees. “No matter what the museum, there is no reason to have lousy food,” he says.
“Lousy” never comes to mind when dining at the Modern. Our dessert is poached rhubarb with strawberry and pistachio vacherin, a perfect tango of rich and smooth along with sweet and slightly tart.
The price for a three-course tasting menu at the Modern is $75 per person, which includes a plate of petit fours that can be enjoyed in the sculpture garden, and that we did. The restaurant has two parts - the Dining Room, where we dined, and the Bar Room, which serves small plates of more rustic Alsatian dishes.
It was a delightfully cool and starry evening. We were alone - no one else picked up on the waiters’ suggestion - with Picasso’s “She-goat,” Alexander Calder’s “Black Widow” and Hector Guimard’s “Bouche du Metropolitain,” an almost surreal experience.
Mr. Bell says this about upscale dining in the cultural setting: “It’s about as civilized as you can get in this country.”
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