Menu Design in Europe
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This visual survey of 200 years of European menu design sweeps from 1800 to 2000, reproducing menu covers and interiors from a wide variety of establishments and occasions: airlines, cabarets, celebratory banquets, ocean liners, New Year's extravaganzas, World's Fairs, and of course, restaurants of nearly every ilk.
The book displays a striking variety of artistic styles. A 1922 carte de menu from Brasserie des Moulins in Paris is handwritten. The SS Conte Rosso's menu cover from 1933 features a sporty tennis player. A sinuous dragon curls up the side of the 1937 Shanghai Restaurant menu from Amsterdam.
Many famous establishments are represented as well: Le Grand Vefour, La Tour d'Argent, Les Frères Troisgros in France. Ponte Vecchio in Italy; Chez Quaglino's and The May Fair Hotel in Britain.
Menus are arranged by decade. The book's coverage is deepest and most interesting from the 1920s to through the 1960s, and French menus are represented most strongly. A very few of the menus depict certain symbols, and represent human beings in ways, which have since been recognized to be shameful.
There are occasional brief contextual notes by the editors, both of whom have worked extensively in the world of design. These and their introductory essays appear in English, German, and French.
448 pages. 10" x 13". Hardcover. Color images throughout.
