V&A: where culture and food collide

There’s a degree of self-discipline required while wandering the halls of London’s hallowed public spaces—they are realms dedicated to learning, expanding one’s mind and absorbing new truths.

There’s a sense of joy that comes with the decision to arise earlier (you hope) than the rest of London and devote three or four happy hours at the altar of culture in a museum. Armed with audio tours and iPhone apps, we prepare to let the varnish of knowledge settle on our tarnished minds while we battle with school tours for breathing space.

Like a beacon in the mist, tea and scones in the museum café beckon – an indulgent counterpoint to the mental stimulation aroused in the exhibition halls. Lovers of culture and food already recognise the Morris, Gamble and Poynter Rooms of the Victoria & Albert Museum as a cultural space worth visiting on its own merits, but in the Victorian era this was a radical new idea.

Encouraging museum visitors to indulge themselves at the café is seen as important now but in 1865, when the designs of the distinctively styled Morris, Gamble and Poynter Rooms were originally commissioned, it was unheard of. It was the V&A’s first director Henry Cole who made it a reality.

The stained glass windows of the Gamble room are monuments to the glory of the tea Victorian break, one prominent lead-lined window proclaiming: 'There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and make his soul enjoy the good of his labour’.

As Museum Director, Cole was truly avant-garde in his determination to create refreshment rooms that reflected the whole of contemporary design theory. Today modern fare like pasta, salads and focaccias is served to contemporary culture vultures but rewind 150 years and a different set of menus was on offer.

In the Poynter Room, broiled chops and steaks were cooked to order on an iron stove by a chef in whites. Other delicacies are recorded in archived menus from 1867 – first and second class menus and a third class service for mechanics, museum workmen and ‘even the humble working class visitors'. Options like veal cutlets and bacon for 1/3 (one shilling and thruppence or 18p) or stewed rabbit for 10d (ten pence) may sound like good value until you learn that an unskilled labourer's wage was about a pound a week.

Today the café experience is an aspiration of pretty much every museum and gallery in Britain, whether it’s casual canteen style or luxury dining. Henry Cole strove to make the Morris, Gamble and Poynter Rooms a destination in themselves and not simply an afterthought: today the V&A museum café embodies not just the sensory satisfaction of a fine meal but mental stimulation as well—making it the perfect cultural experience.

This article first appeared in Espress Magazine, produced by Benugo and designed by ico Design.
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