Ellen Silverman
With one of the most exciting collections of international modern art in the country, it's apropos that its Danny Meyer-created restaurant would adhere to a Bauhaus-minimalist style. The sleek white interiors allow you to focus on the $98 four-course dinner prix-fixe by Alsace-born chef Gabriel Kreuther.
Located just on the other side of a frosted glass partition from the more casual café on the first floor on the 53rd Street side of the building, you can't see the galleries from your white tablecloth perch, but you can gaze out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the museum's cool outdoor sculpture park. The restaurant stays open hours after the museum has shut its doors. Feast on such works of art as veal sweetbread and mushroom ravioli with mustard and a vin jaune emulsion.
Open: Lunch (12-2pm Monday-Friday); Dinner (5-10:30pm Monday-Saturday); closed Sunday. Reservations suggested.
Where: 9 West 53rd Street
More Info: tel. 212/333-1220; www.themodernnyc.com;
Photo Caption: The Modern at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City
Located on the ground floor of a four-story brick townhouse occupied by the charming Viennese-centric Neue Galerie, Chef Kurt Guttenbrunner's re-imagined Viennese café is as much a Euro-transporting respite for locals as well as tourists. Enter the warm-wood paneled dining room with its herringbone wood floors and windows peeking onto Central Park, grab a seat at one of the white marble-topped café tables. Try the velvety beef goulash ($29) and the outstanding veal schnitzel ($24).
Open: 9am-6pm Monday & Wednesday; 9am-9pm Thursday-Sunday; closed Tuesday. Reservations recommended.
Where: 1048 Fifth Avenue
More Info: tel. 212/288-0665; www.cafesabarsky.com
Photo Caption: The Pastry Bar at Café Sabarsky at the Neue Galerie in New York
This 45,000-square-foot ode to glass artist Dale Chihuly opened at the base of the Space Needle in Spring 2012 (travelers might also recognize Chihuly's work from the Bellagio's lobby ceiling in Las Vegas). Impressive by day and night, this eye-popping permanent exhibition is worth the admission fee -- if only to gape at the seemingly impossible forms that Chihuly created to look like familiar (and unfamiliar) shapes from sea and land.
The aptly named Collections Café also showcases Chihuly's oddball collectibles, such as old cameras, porcelain dog figurines, tin toys, and even vintage accordions that dangle from the ceiling. The menu itself contains a collection of local farmer talent -- a carefully curated roster created by chefs Jeff Maxfield and Ivan Szilak. Try the housemade tagliatelle with braised, tender lamb and sweet strawberries ($18) and the neon-bright watermelon gazpacho with jalapeno and mint ($6).
Where: 305 Harrison Street, Seattle
Open: 11am-9pm Sunday-Thursday; 11am-10pm Friday-Saturday. Reservations recommended.
More Info: tel. 206/753-4935; www.chihulygardenandglass.com/collections-café
Located in the basement of this Golden Gate Park-centric institution, don't let the subterranean locale fool you -- the last thing you experience in this wondrous museum eatery is claustrophobia. A glass-encased "live" wall is covered in bright-green moss. Look out for textural elements (cork, glass, reclaimed cypress) that were dreamed up by architect Olle Lundberg and Chef Charles Phan of Slanted Door fame (Phan also holds an architecture degree). And the latter's food won't fence you in, either. Check out the aromatic steamed P.E.I mussels, in their broth rife with sake, ginger, lemon grass, Thai basil, and cilantro ($15) and the fettuccini with fava beans, roasted tomatoes, and young garlic shoots ($18).
Open: Lunch only, 11am-3pm Monday-Sunday.
Where: 55 Music Drive
More Info: tel. 415-876-6121; www.themossroom.com
Photo Caption: The Moss Room at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, California
While some museum hounds use the in-house eats to fuel their engine for more art gazing, no need at Bravo -- the walls are ever-hung with a rotating selection of paintings from the museums gallery walls. Located in the Linde Family Wing for Contemporary Art on the upper level, the ecru-colored fabric banquettes are the perfectly chic yet comfy perch to experience Chef Tim Partidge's silky butter-poached salmon with bright artichokes, savory fingerling potatoes, and smoked bacon with a sorrel emulsion ($25).
Open: Lunch (11:30am-3pm Monday-Friday); Dinner (5:30-8pm Wednesday-Friday); Brunch (11:30am-3pm Saturday-Sunday)
Where: 465 Huntington Avenue
More Info: tel. 617-369-3474; www.mfa.org/visit/dining
Photo Caption: The Bravo Restaurant at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Dine as the obscenely wealthy do -- or used to. The Morgan's white-walled dining room dotted with modern cherry-red captain's chairs is where ol' Pierpont Morgan himself -- father of J.P. --used to swirl goblets and sup on quail under glass. Or so we imagine. But imagination isn't what's necessary here -- just good table manners and an excellent appetite for dishes that meld the classic and the modern, like the herby chicken paillard paired with local roasted baby root vegetables and quinoa ($22.50) and the chilly Maine lobster salad drizzled just-so with lemon-poppy seed dressing and perched atop frisée, slender shaved fennel, grilled asparagus, and juicy mango ($28.50). Kick it off with the "Three Martini Lunch," a pick-your-poison (gin or vodka) flight of three 2-oz. cocktails -- one with an olive, one a twist, one an onion. You might even fancy yourself a financier.
Open: Lunch only (12-2:30pm Tuesday-Friday; 11am-2:30pm Saturday-Sunday)
Where: 225 Madison Avenue
More Info: tel. 212-683-2130; www.themorgan.org
Photo Caption: The Morgan Dining Room at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City
It's one thing to have great food in a museum; it's quite another kind of commitment to have food that represents what's in the museum. In what might be one of the most genius bits of food-service logic, the Mitsitam Café serves dishes made from ingredients indigenous to the tribes of the Americas.
A stretch of floor-to-ceiling windows illuminate the curved, meandering walls done in cheerful, earthy tones of pumpkin and honey-hued wood accents. Mitsitam (translated as "let's eat" in the language of the Delaware and Piscataway tribes) is cafeteria-style with five stations representing the food of different Native American tribes. Fork into dishes like the rich buffalo chili on traditional fry bread with pickled chilies and pinto beans ($12.15), or try the guilt-be-damned chocolate-tamarind rice pudding ($4.75).
Open: 11am-5pm daily. No reservations necessary.
Where: Fourth Street and Independence Ave., S.W.
More Info: tel. 866/868-7774; www.mitsitamcafe.com
Photo Caption: The Mitsitam Café at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.
If nature is the best art of all in your opinion, you'll swoon over the up-close views of the Santa Monica Mountain and, further afield, the City of Angels, and the Pacific Ocean afforded by the nearly glass-encased windows-as-walls architecture. Take it in because you may well forget all about what's outside when a plate full of pork belly, smoked mozzarella, apple, caramelized onions, and mustard jus lands on the table. Executive Chef Mayet Cristobal's dishes aren't just show-stoppers for the palate; they are visually stunning, with texture, height, and drizzle that looks as masterful as it is delicious.
Open: 11:30am-2:30pm Tuesday-Saturday; 5pm-9pm Saturday; 11am-3pm Sunday. Reservations recommended.
More Info: tel. 310/440-6810; www.getty.edu
Photo Caption: Interior of the Restaurant at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California
Its modern cube-n'-carpet décor feels eerily airport-ish (albeit a really nice airport eatery!), but the seasonally inspired dishes prepared by Executive Chef Dave Boehm are at once grounding and ethereal. The menu changes seasonally and, sometimes, by show. For example, the recent Yves Saint Laurent exhibit inspired a Francophile $36 three-course prix fixe with dishes like a foie gras terrine with duck confit, grilled pillowy sourdough bread, and sauce l'orange (also à la carte for $13) and brown-butter drizzled trout amadine ($15).
Open: 11am-3pm Tuesday-Thursday; 11am-8:30pm Friday; 10am-3pm Saturday-Sunday
Where: 100 West 14th Avenue Parkway
More Info: tel. 303/534-1455; www.ktrg.net/palettes
Photo Caption: Palettes Restaurant at the Denver Art Museum in Denver, Colorado
Located just on the other side of a frosted glass partition from the more casual café on the first floor on the 53rd Street side of the building, you can't see the galleries from your white tablecloth perch, but you can gaze out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the museum's cool outdoor sculpture park. The restaurant stays open hours after the museum has shut its doors. Feast on such works of art as veal sweetbread and mushroom ravioli with mustard and a vin jaune emulsion.
Open: Lunch (12-2pm Monday-Friday); Dinner (5-10:30pm Monday-Saturday); closed Sunday. Reservations suggested.
Where: 9 West 53rd Street
More Info: tel. 212/333-1220; www.themodernnyc.com;
Photo Caption: The Modern at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City
Open: 9am-6pm Monday & Wednesday; 9am-9pm Thursday-Sunday; closed Tuesday. Reservations recommended.
Where: 1048 Fifth Avenue
More Info: tel. 212/288-0665; www.cafesabarsky.com
Photo Caption: The Pastry Bar at Café Sabarsky at the Neue Galerie in New York
The aptly named Collections Café also showcases Chihuly's oddball collectibles, such as old cameras, porcelain dog figurines, tin toys, and even vintage accordions that dangle from the ceiling. The menu itself contains a collection of local farmer talent -- a carefully curated roster created by chefs Jeff Maxfield and Ivan Szilak. Try the housemade tagliatelle with braised, tender lamb and sweet strawberries ($18) and the neon-bright watermelon gazpacho with jalapeno and mint ($6).
Where: 305 Harrison Street, Seattle
Open: 11am-9pm Sunday-Thursday; 11am-10pm Friday-Saturday. Reservations recommended.
More Info: tel. 206/753-4935; www.chihulygardenandglass.com/collections-café
Open: Lunch only, 11am-3pm Monday-Sunday.
Where: 55 Music Drive
More Info: tel. 415-876-6121; www.themossroom.com
Photo Caption: The Moss Room at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, California
Open: Lunch (11:30am-3pm Monday-Friday); Dinner (5:30-8pm Wednesday-Friday); Brunch (11:30am-3pm Saturday-Sunday)
Where: 465 Huntington Avenue
More Info: tel. 617-369-3474; www.mfa.org/visit/dining
Photo Caption: The Bravo Restaurant at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Open: Lunch only (12-2:30pm Tuesday-Friday; 11am-2:30pm Saturday-Sunday)
Where: 225 Madison Avenue
More Info: tel. 212-683-2130; www.themorgan.org
Photo Caption: The Morgan Dining Room at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City
A stretch of floor-to-ceiling windows illuminate the curved, meandering walls done in cheerful, earthy tones of pumpkin and honey-hued wood accents. Mitsitam (translated as "let's eat" in the language of the Delaware and Piscataway tribes) is cafeteria-style with five stations representing the food of different Native American tribes. Fork into dishes like the rich buffalo chili on traditional fry bread with pickled chilies and pinto beans ($12.15), or try the guilt-be-damned chocolate-tamarind rice pudding ($4.75).
Open: 11am-5pm daily. No reservations necessary.
Where: Fourth Street and Independence Ave., S.W.
More Info: tel. 866/868-7774; www.mitsitamcafe.com
Photo Caption: The Mitsitam Café at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.
Open: 11:30am-2:30pm Tuesday-Saturday; 5pm-9pm Saturday; 11am-3pm Sunday. Reservations recommended.
More Info: tel. 310/440-6810; www.getty.edu
Photo Caption: Interior of the Restaurant at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California
Open: 11am-3pm Tuesday-Thursday; 11am-8:30pm Friday; 10am-3pm Saturday-Sunday
Where: 100 West 14th Avenue Parkway
More Info: tel. 303/534-1455; www.ktrg.net/palettes
Photo Caption: Palettes Restaurant at the Denver Art Museum in Denver, Colorado