What's on the Menu: Destination Dining
February 21–September 29, 2024
The Wolfsonian–FIU @ 1001 Washington Avenue
Leisure dining flourished from the 1920s onward, not only on land, but also at sea and in the air, a result of rising incomes among an increasingly urban and mobile population. Restaurants in popular tourist destinations and in the trains, ships, and airplanes that carried travelers seized on advances in printing, designing an array of souvenirs and other cheaply produced takeaways touting exclusivity, ethnic cuisine, or a view of exciting corners of the world. What's on the Menu: Destination Dining explored such ephemera, including decorative menus and other items from ocean liner restaurants, railroad dining cars, in-flight dinner services, and hotels and eateries in cities like New York, New Orleans, and Miami Beach.
This installation was inspired by a recent promised gift from Vicki Gold Levi and presented in connection with What's on the Menu: Dinner and a Show.
Banner: Menu (detail), La Ronde, The Fontainebleau, c. 1956. The Wolfsonian–FIU, Promised Gift of Vicki Gold Levi.