Looking for a memorable meal in an unforgettable setting? Take a trip to one of these top museums, where fine dining mixes beautifully with fine art and design.



When the Museum of Modern Art reopened in New York early this year, its strikingly elegant restaurant, The Modern, received almost as much attention as the museum itself. With a separate street entrance that allows diners to bypass the MOMA altogether, the highly-designed restaurant represented the first museum eatery in the United States that was not hidden behind labyrinthine corridors of artwork. It also marked what cultural sociologist Pierre Bourdieu predicted: that, as art became more accessible, museums would become more important as living spaces. What was revolutionary in the U.S. however, was already the norm in Europe, where the dining spaces of top museums are curated with the same eye for design as the rest of the building. So, from New York to London to Paris, here's a selection of museum restaurants that are a destination in their own right.

– New York Museum Restaurants

THE MODERN
You can't beat the setting at this fine dining establishment located in New York's Museum of Modern Art, which combines a café, a formal restaurant and a bar. With vantage views over the expanded Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden, diners can appreciate the form of the Calders while indulging in the function of satiating hunger. Chef Gabriel Kreuther's Alsatian-inspired French American cuisine is presented with all the flourishes of a modern, three-star meal, while the extensive wine list of some 900 selections practically guarantees the perfect bottle to complement. From the décor to the service to the food, The Modern is a modernist study on the ultimate dining experience.

The Modern
Museum of Modern Art
9 West 53rd St.
New York, NY
10019 USA
+1 212 333 1220
www.themodernnyc.com

CAFÉ SABARSKY
Ronald Lauder's Neue Galerie in New York did not neglect its café when filling the museum's three floors with contemporary German and Austrian art and design. The Café Sabarsky—named after the museum's co-founder Serge Sabarsky—elegantly evokes a kaffeehaus in Vienna, furnished with reproductions of Josef Hoffmann sconces, Adolf Loos bentwood chairs and Otto Wagner fabrics. The authentic Viennese specialties on the menu are also worth nothing, from the Hungarian beef goulash to the Linzertorte to the plump and fragrant Austrian jelly doughnuts. For an extra jolt of culture, live classical and cabaret performances are regularly held here, accompanied by notes from the Bösendorfer grand piano in the corner.

Café Sabarsky
1048 Fifth Ave (at 86th St.)
New York, NY
+1 212 288 0665
www.wallse.com

– London Museum Restaurants

THE TATE MODERN RESTAURANT
When Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron converted the original Bankside Power Station into the cutting edge Tate Modern, the most noticeable change to the building's exterior was a two-story glass structure spanning the roof, which allows natural light to flood into the top floor galleries. And it is here, on the 7th floor of the museum, where the Tate Modern Restaurant serves its eclectic cuisine. While admiring the stunning view over the Thames that stretches all the way to St Paul's Cathedral, diners can savor dishes based on seasonal ingredients such as Cornish crab mayonnaise with grilled flat bread and ox cheek stew with braised lentils and herbed dumplings.

Tate Modern Restaurant
Level 7, Tate Modern
Bankside, London
SE1 9TG UK
+44 (0) 20 7401 5020
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/information.htm

TATE GALLERY RESTAURANT
For a restaurant located in an art museum, you could not have asked for a better backdrop. The dining room of the Tate Gallery Restaurant is circled by Rex Whistler's wraparound mural, "The Expedition in Pursuit of Rare Meats," a painting that recounts the voyage of a group of seven people in search of exotic foodstuffs. While a pheasant casserole does occasionally feature, the menu here is rather more traditional. On the other hand, the lengthy wine list is said to be the most reasonably-priced in all of London. Now that's a rare treat that's worth pursuing.

Tate Gallery Restaurant
Tate Britain
Millbank, London
SW1 UK
+44 (0) 20 7887 8825
www.tate.org.uk

– Paris Museum Restaurants

GEORGES
In 2000, the Georges Pompidou Center, designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers in the late 1970s, replaced its top-floor cafeteria with another architectural masterpiece. The restaurant Georges, designed by architects at Jacob + MacFarlane, features a private elevator for diners as well as unusual details such as aluminum floors, rubber coated walls, and steel framed tables with battery-operated lights. While no doubt boasting some of the coolest interiors in the city, it's the restaurant's 360-degree panoramic view that people come for, especially those lucky enough to land a table on the rooftop terrace in summer.

Georges
Centre Georges Pompidou
19 rue Beaubourg
75004 Paris
France
+33 (0) 1 44 78 7 99
www.centrepompidou.fr

CAFÉ MARLY
Situated under the stately arcades of the Richelieu wing of the historic Louvre museum, and overlooking the I.M. Pei glass pyramid, the fashionable Café Marly similarly marries the old and the new. French crystal and porcelain designer Olivier Gagnère, a master of mixing modernity and tradition, was charged with creating the rich interiors, appealing enough to compete with the popular terrace and its naturally spectacular views. As for the contemporary French cuisine on offer, it is also prepared with a degree of artistry.

Café Marly
Cour Napoléon, Musée du Louvre
93 rue de Rivoli
75001 Paris
+33 (0) 1 49 26 06 60
www.louvre.fr