Museum Restaurant at the Philadelphia Museum of Art
West entrance, 26th Street and
Benjamin Franklin Parkway, free parking
215-684-7990
Credit cards accepted
Wheelchair-accessible
Lunch Tuesday-Saturday, Sunday brunch and dinner Wednesday and Friday
Reservations a good idea
Dining in unusual places is a welcome change from the typical restaurant experience. I have pleasant memories of lunch in Wanamaker’s Crystal Tea Room, where the layered tea sandwiches and chicken chow mein were among my favorites. Thank goodness the Corinthian Room in Strawbridge’s is still with us and will be open for lunch and dinner every day through December.
Dining way up in the sky at Windows on the World in the World Trade Center was breathtakingly eerie. I’ve also visited the revolving Sunflower Restaurant in the Hyatt Hotel in Atlanta and the art-deco splendor of New York’s Rainbow Room.
I truly enjoy lunch, dinner or a snack in any number of American and European museums, especially the Museum Restaurant in our own Philadelphia Museum of Art. The man in charge of this culinary gem is executive chef Tracey Hopkins, a graduate of Baltimore’s International Culinary Arts Institute. A week before Halloween, Edward and I savored an Oktoberfest dinner at the museum, where I had a chance to speak with this talented man. I discovered Hopkins is from St. Michael’s on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where the blue crab and oysters reign. Now I know why Hopkins has such an astonishing hand with oysters and crab cakes.
I’ve enjoyed Hopkins’ cuisine on a number of occasions, especially at charity benefits, but hadn’t been to the restaurant for either a Wednesday or Friday dinner. A friend and I recently did just that and we had an enchanting time.
The à la carte menu is small — just three entrées: crab cakes, salmon and loin of lamb — so Ilene and I opted for the Artist’s Table, a colorfully enticing Mediterranean-style buffet at the entrance to the restaurant. The artwork on the walls changes periodically, but it is usually très moderne.
We sipped jumbo martinis ($7.50) as our server brought us an assortment of French rolls. They were crusty, dense and fresh, but could have spent a little time in a warm oven. A ramekin of top-quality, deep-green extra-virgin olive oil accompanied the bread. We munched to the strains of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, which was on the perfect decibel level.
The buffet is $24 per person. I tasted everything and each dish was carefully prepared. Vegetarians, take notice because there is an array of salads and vegetables that will keep you quite content. Hopkins purchases his produce from local farmers, which you’ll realize the instant you see and taste it.
A salad of baby greens, including delicate baby spinach, was enhanced by a creamy lemon vinaigrette. Caesar salad was perfectly prepared. The romaine leaves were crisp and cool, the dressing absolutely homemade, studded with Parmesan cheese. A platter of long, thin slices of grilled bread, topped with olive oil and Parmesan cheese and run under the broiler, was so inviting, I savored several of these homemade "croutons" with salad.
I placed a mound of marinated mushrooms next to the Caesar. Hopkins uses small white button mushrooms from Kennett Square that are kept in their marinade until they are ready for the table. The in-house roasted red peppers were pretty and delicious, but someone forgot to peel them. No matter, I just used my fork to peel away the skin and enjoyed. Marinated blanched green beans also were very good, as was the grilled zucchini, which is the only way I will ever eat this vegetable.
There is always a roast of the day and a fish of the day on the buffet. Free-range boneless chicken breasts were dusted with herbs, grilled, cooled and sliced. It’s easy to overcook breast of chicken, resulting in a dry, stringy mess, but these plump beauties were juicy, tender and slightly translucent inside. A side of Norwegian salmon was encrusted with whole-grain Dijon mustard, baked in the oven and cooled. It was so delicious, I returned to the buffet for a second good-sized helping. Rice salads can be tricky because the rice has to be cooked just right and cannot be overdressed, or a soggy texture results. The salad was studded with peas and bits of sweet red onion.
A three-tiered "what-not" held platters of some of my favorite things. Cool, not-at-all-bitter eggplant slices were grilled, imparting a smoky flavor. Hopkins and his staff took yams, peeled them, shaped them into small ovals, dressed them with butter and brown sugar, and roasted them in the oven. This is the first time I ever tasted room-temperature yams and they were a nice surprise.
"What are these?" asked Ilene as she pointed to a platter of small, round cream-colored chips. I wasn’t sure until I remembered the season and took a bite. They were parsnips, and they were splendid. Parsnips develop a sweet nut-like flavor when roasted with olive oil or butter. "They’re like eating potato chips," I said. "But healthier."
Ilene and I were very European and enjoyed fruit and cheese for dessert. I selected a fresh ripe goat cheese and a sprig of sweet green grapes. I enjoyed the fruit and cheese with another of Hopkins’ "croutons" and sipped Earl Grey tea.
A friend told me that Wednesday nights at the museum feature music and simple fare, usually two items for $9. Ilene and I looked in the gift shop and walked over to the Grand Hall, where the wailing sounds of a clarinet were joined by drums and the plucking of a bass fiddle in the joyous style of Jewish music known as Klezmer. The room was filled with men, women and children clapping and humming along. It was the sixth night of Hanukkah, and patrons tucked into roast chicken and potato latkes as I glanced to my right and saw, down a long hallway, the beautiful sight of Cezanne’s The Bathers.
Three tips of the toque to Museum Restaurant at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
