A restaurant is never about the food alone — what we eat is only a part of the tapestry. Average scallops, even middling steak might be granted licence, at the very least shrugged off, if the service is excellent and the atmosphere arresting. Then there is the aesthetic. 

A beautiful dining room is poetic. Since the weight of the pandemic shifted, art has enjoyed something of a renaissance in hospitality. Whilst paintings have made an impression on diners since the late 1700s, today we are more keenly seeking out spaces that stimulate. 

In the past ten years or so, a pared-back and minimalist approach has been in vogue. Wooden tables replaced white linen; torn-off wallpaper walls were preferred to crisp paintwork. These ideals mirror the food: “ingredients-led … produce-driven”. Here, food is all, centre stage. Possibly this is the St. John model, the chef Fergus Henderson and co.’s temple to an anointing form of gastronomy where an emphasis is placed on what we eat, whilst conversation with those we are with is afforded maximum gravitas. 

The Gallery restaurant is now home to works by British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare

There is nothing wrong with priming restaurants to that end — to focusing resources on the food in an ascetic fashion. In fact, there is an art and charm to the simplicity. Lately, a renewed focus on art in hospitality has come to the fore, however, and it is welcome. Fixtures such as Mount St. Restaurant in Mayfair — owned by the arts group Hauser & Wirth and perched above the newly opened Audley public house — is as much a gallery as it is a dining room. There is even an original Matisse in one corner. Consider the charm of sitting down to an omelette Arnold Bennett, indulgent a dish as it is, surrounded by such works. The richness of the experience is only elevated.

“Art is at the heart of the building, with The Audley acting as a showcase for extraordinary and important works,” reads the restaurant website. “Art and design continue to integrate throughout the space, from the table lamps to the dining chairs, cabinets to chandeliers.”

Mount St. is home to more than 200 pieces, including works by Andy Warhol, Lucian Freud, Ferdinand Hodler, Peter Fischli and David Weiss. 

A similar set of ideals are apparent at Sessions Arts Club in Clerkenwell, one of London’s most beautiful restaurants. It is popular not only due to head chef Florence Knight’s cooking but the poignancy of the room. Much of the art is by co-owner Jonny Gent; Sessions is essentially an extension of his personality. This was pointed out by the culinary fixer and esteemed PR Hugh Richard-Wright, who holds great reverence for interior design. 

“Part of the immense popularity of Sessions Arts Club is down to the beauty of the space; everywhere you look, from the menu up, there is art, and I love that,” he says. 

“Many restaurants have decorative art — neon, prints, murals — but it’s not curated, and is there purely to be instagrammable, not because anyone actually cares. So when a restaurant does bother with art, I really notice it.” 

Soho, ever an area bound readily to creativity, is home to The Groucho Club, which recently underwent a renovation. It has long been a shrine to artwork, but now it is better positioned, more dutifully shown off. The arrival of the chef Mark Hix, famously a friend to Damien Hirst — it was at Hix’s late Tramshed restaurant that diners would see Hirst’s cow in formaldehyde — proved accentuating, too. 

“Every time I go [to The Groucho] I seem to notice something new,” adds Richard-Wright. “The other day I was having coffee next to Angus Fairhurst’s When I Woke Up In The Morning The Feeling Was Still There, which is one of my favourite pieces of modern art; a couple of weeks ago I had breakfast surrounded by David Shrigleys. It’s magical.”

The Gallery restaurant — the name is salient indeed — at the modish central London restaurant Sketch was updated last year. It is now home to works by the British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare.

Elsewhere in town is Bellamy’s, wherein guests will enjoy classic French dishes amongst a collection of 20th century prints, predominantly by the Italian illustrator René Gruau. His work uses a palate of black, white and red, the epitome of lightly sensual chicness. 

There are new fixtures such as Cycene, a brooding East London restaurant featuring a central sketch by Frank Auerbach. Paradise Green, in the City, now hosts the contemporary artist Lucy Sparrow’s installation, The Billion Dollar Robbery — transposed from the Saatchi Gallery. Bacchanalia, the restaurateur Richard Caring’s latest foray into flippancy, has taken on the Hirst mantle, displaying four original sculptures in a decadent orgy of a Greek-Italian dining room. 

Tradition and progress combine at restaurants that are themselves housed within a gallery. Townsend, at the Whitechapel Gallery, offers a modern menu of Cornish pollock with buttered leeks and pork chops and plums, onions, capers and sage. The Spanish chef Jose Pizarro, whose tapas has been a mainstay in London for more than a decade, was in 2021 installed in a room at the Royal Academy. Croquetas and portraiture go hand-in-hand.

Hospitality is a source of comfort, an escape from the commute

Manchester-based Thom Hetherington, a hospitality consultant and the executive chairman of the arts group Easel Projects, says such a considered approach brings value.

“Chefs will think about the narrative of every dish they design, from the ingredients to the techniques, the influences and the underlying philosophy, so to not apply that same thoughtful diligence to the art on the walls is a missed opportunity,” he says. 

Art should reinforce the stories and values of the restaurant, subtly and subliminally maybe. Art that jars and jolts the customer out of their seamless hospitality bubble can be damaging, just like getting the seating or the service wrong. I consider it as fundamental to happy diners as the classic holy trinity of “sound, light, temperature”. Good art settles and nerves and gladdens the soul.

Hetherington adds that pubs and restaurants should avoid offering artists “exposure”. Instead, there should be a togetherness, and that has been happening: “Art rarely sells off restaurant walls and ultimately the artist needs to be paid for the work they have already produced. It’s good to see the relationships between restaurateurs and artists becoming more equitable and sustainable.”

Everyday life in Britain is far from resplendent. Hospitality, then, is a source of comfort, an escape from the mundanity of the commute and the gesture politics we witness whilst on it. Further still, there is an efficiency to art-filled dining rooms. Long may galleries live, but to sit down to a hot pie, artwork all around, brings a necessary frugality to the hardships of 2023.

The arts commentator Elise Bell sums this up with grace: “An art-filled dining room takes you away from the everyday drudgery of your own kitchen.” She continues:

More than that, there’s something really special when art and food come together in a way that’s meaningful rather than cynical. It helps to elevate the sensory experience. 

In the cost of living crisis, people are looking for something accessible but special. Restaurants are supporting that search for fulfillment.