By Tamara Mann

This article was published in Museum News, September/October issue of 2007.

When the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) in Washington, D.C., opened its doors in 2004, visitors happily stormed the Mitsitam Native Foods Café for such Native specialties as cedar-planked fire-roasted salmon and buffalo shank. Cafe patrons, simply by taking a bite, were learning about Native American culture.

The cafe presents food as an educational opportunity: Between abundant plates of spiced pepitas (pumpkin seeds), diners can find small note cards with tidbits like “Wild rice is a cereal grain that is native to Minnesota” or information on Native-owned companies such as Quinault Pride Seafood, which supplies the cafe’s wild salmon.

NMAI is not alone. Museums of all stripes are increasingly using what was once a mere amenity to continue the educational experience for visitors. For many museums, this means that those in charge of facilities have become curators of the cafe, delving into food history and culture to make eating an authentic experience. Although an architect by training, former facilities planning coordinator Duane Blue Spruce dug into the process of researching the cuisine for NMAI. “Even though my main role was design,” he said, “as a Native person I found myself representing the museum on many issues, including the menu.” He realized that the “menu was integral to the design of the cafe” and embarked on a culinary adventure to find the perfect cuisine for what became Mitsitam, “let’s eat” in Native Piscataway and Delaware languages.

Blue Spruce and other staff members realized that the cafe “would not be just another museum cafeteria but an extension of the educational mission of the museum.” In 1998 Blue Spruce encountered a duo whose vision would eventually determine the style and cuisine of the cafe: husband-and-wife team Fernando and Marlene Divina of the Portland, Oreg., restaurant Fiddleheads. Inspired by the museum’s hemispheric scope, Fernando organized the cuisine into five regions and designed conceptual menus for each. Not only did each dish have to taste good, it also had to speak to the wider goals of the institution. The menu had to reflect the seasonality of Native cooking, look beautiful on a plate and demonstrate that, although Native in origin, these are foods visitors have been eating all their lives. Filled with familiar fixings such as shredded cheese and pinto beans, the Indian tacos with buffalo chili colorfully adorn the plate and give viewers a novel yet nostalgic culinary experience. 

Like NMAI, the Neue Gallerie in New York was planned with a cafe in mind. Occupying one of the nicest rooms in the building, Café Sabarsky pulls together the viewer experience by enveloping diners in the intellectual and artistic tradition of early-20th-century Vienna. While nestled in a lush green booth beneath a Joseph Hoffman chandelier, visitors can peer out on Fifth Avenue while savoring a slice of flaky apple strudel or the exquisite sachertorte, a classic Viennese dark chocolate cake with apricot confiture. Adorned with a grand piano, Adolph Loos furniture, impeccably designed silverware and even a newspaper rack with wooden dowels bearing papers such as the Kurier from Austria and the FAZ from Germany, the cafe transports diners to turn-of-the-century Vienna. According to Deputy Director Scott Gutterman, Café Sabarsky “completes the museum experience” by offering visitors a space for conversation that mirrors the Viennese way of experiencing culture.

Museums not only adopt and adapt food trends, they can be trendsetters, altering wider eating habits and attitudes towards food. At the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Portola Café, fish has always been on the menu. Despite the dilemma of serving on the plate what visitors come to enjoy behind glass, the cafe has successfully incorporated and advanced the museum’s mission “to inspire conservation of the oceans.” When the aquarium developed Seafood Watch, a program “designed to raise consumer awareness about the importance of buying seafood from sustainable sources,” the Portola Cafe strictly followed the guidelines, which include prohibitions on serving any species that are over-fished or cultivated with farming techniques that damage the environment. In turn, the cafe’s parent foodservice company, Bon Appetit Management, adopted Seafood Watch for all of its properties. “The broad adoption of these guidelines by zoos, aquariums and major seafood buyers,” notes George Leonard, senior science manager for Seafood Watch, “is a critical first step in ensuring the health of the oceans.” Now visitors can take a bite out of the morally vetted house-smoked salmon and know that hundreds of establishments throughout the country take an ethical stance towards seafood thanks to Portola.

While other museums concern themselves with what to serve, COSI, a science center in Columbus, Ohio, has an additional problem: How to show the science behind what it serves. Eager to embrace and further the museum’s mission, COSI’s foodservice provider, Sodexho, tries to find foods that show that science is fun. The Atomic Cafe offers an assortment of healthy, kid-friendly food options with names like “The Speed of Light Salad,” but the museum’s top culinary draw is Dippin’ Dots ice cream. Visitors can purchase Dippin’ Dots at a cart that details how these ice cream pellets are flash frozen and shipped on dry ice at 40 degrees below zero. At the cotton candy vendor, visitors can watch as sugar is heated to 400 degrees and woven into edible threads. COSI serves culinary items that are not only scientific but, as Mike Barfay, general manager of foodservices remarks, are also just “fun foods that hit the spot.”

No longer simply a brief respite from the exhibition halls, museum cafes have become part of the museum experience. The smells of cornbread and cinnamon, the taste of chocolate and the sight of spiderweb-like sugar join with images of textiles, paintings and dinosaurs to ensure that visitors savor both the exhibition and the food.