Feast Your Eyes Tour & Tastings

Feast Your Eyes blends a love of food and art on a guided private tour through The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Feast your senses in the Egyptian galleries. The love of food was both earthly and eternal. View the 4,000 year-old wheat, raisins, dates, and berries that fed the pharaohs and were specially prepared to sustain them through the afterlife. For those with a thirst for wine, we’ll inspect some of the earliest wine labels – sealed jars providing appellations details.

Among the Greek and Roman galleries, we’ll relish stories of symposia and lavish feasts and entertainments. Devour tidbits of history and discover how the ancient Greeks dominated the wine trade until the expansion of the Roman Empire and the Italian varietals favored therein. We’ll dip into the introduction of wine to the French regions, especially Burgundy, thanks to the spread of Roman rule.

The European galleries provide a taste of the produce, fish, and other delicacies that were on offer in the markets of Amsterdam, one of the world’s first truly capitalist emporiums.

Indulge in the still-lifes that flaunt access and abundance, while managing to temper excess with messages of the ephemeral nature of food and the fleeting enjoyment of wealth.

Delight in the princely pieces used in aristocratic drinking games and see how they indulged their noble cravings for imported luxuries including chocolate, coffee, tea, sugar, and ice for ice cream. Get the scoop on select luxury goods, such as Sevres, that built their brand on such appetites.

Learn how the European appetite for excellence and the American craving for convenience created the first real restaurants. Chew on the rise of the café culture and haute cuisine after gluttony became distasteful during the French Revolution.

Hungry to understand how a new cuisine is made? Dig into an illustrated discussion about self-sustaining farms and hunting for food – an American freedom in stark contrast to European traditions. Savor the Old World cuisines replicated in the New World among the northern settlements and eat up the new recipes and flavors of the Old South.

Sip stories of a new modern life, featuring dangerous cocktails and even more daring jazz music. Get a taste of the radical introduction of supermarkets and the ready-made meal. Then bite into conversations about farm-to-table and other contemporary movements.

A wine and food tasting can follow at Aldo Sohm Wine Bar in Midtown, where Le Bernardin’s acclaimed wine director Aldo Sohm and his team of sommeliers will pair four special wines with a menu of charcuterie, roasted spiced carrots, short rib skewers and chocolate marquise for dessert.

Experience this perfect pairing created by Aldo Sohm. The Feast Your Eyes Tour and Tasting links together all the senses and elevates a heightened awareness of life’s pleasures.

Amali Restaurant’s chef Rachel Goulet, who studied art history as well, created an exceptional six-course dinner that reflects all of the six cultures touched on during the tour.

Amali’s Feast Your Eyes Tasting can be enjoyed by private groups of four to twenty guests.

The Feast Your Eyes Tour and Tastings can be customized to hone in on one or more of the following themes: food history, tastes through time, contemporary trends in the industry, drinks and beverages, and wine.

* Please note that our standard pricing on this page is not intended for corporate audiences. For corporate groups, please contact us at team (at) artsmart.com with the size group, date and preferred time, and we will be able to provide corporate options and pricing. Corporate audiences enjoy additional options and more detailed service.

Feast Your Eyes™ Tour & Tastings is a collaboration combining an Art Smart food- and drink- inspired Met museum tour with an optional tasting inside The Metropolitan Museum of Art. This food and wine pairing has been thoughtfully crafted to reflect the culture and cuisine presented by the artworks in the Tour.

Feast Your Eyes Tour blends a love of food, drink and culture on a guided private tour through The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Carefully crafted by art historians and food scholars, this fresh offering details a visual banquet presented through more than twenty-five paintings, sculptures, and objets d’art peppered throughout the galleries. The artwork spans six different cultures ranging from ancient to modern. The slider above brings you through the highlights.

Presented in Art Smart’s signature of-the-moment style, the Feast Your Eyes Tour conversation is inspired by dining rituals, popular culture, and contemporary food and drink trends. This Met tour supports Art Smart’s mission to provide tours that speak to the unique interests and experiences of individuals while helping clients navigate the vast art resources of New York City and beyond in exceptional ways — this time it’s with a foodie twist. It was carefully designed by a foodie art historian along with a food historian with the intention to go broaden the appeal beyond the immediate artworks and fascinate those curious about foodie culture.

The Feast Your Eyes Tour & Tastings can be customized to hone in on one or more of the following themes: food history, tastes through time, contemporary trends in the industry, drinks and beverages, and wine.

While the time can be customized and/or extended for an additional fee, the standard experience entails a 1.5 hour tour through the museum galleries before we proceed to one of the eateries in the museum. Your guide will stay on with you for the remainder of your to assist you with your à la carte order that matches the theme of the tour (wine, chocolate, etc) and share more about the connections between your tasting and the tour topics. There is an optional $25 fee per person if you would like us to prearrange a chocolate selection on your behalf. Additional drinks, etc are recommended and are à la carte.

Optional areas of the tour:

• Feast your senses in the Egyptian galleries.
• Among the Greek and Roman galleries, we’ll relish stories of symposia and lavish feasts and entertainments.
• The European galleries provide a sense of the produce, fish, and other delicacies that were on offer in the markets of Amsterdam, one of the world’s first truly capitalist emporiums.
• Sip in stories of a new modern life, featuring dangerous cocktails and even more daring jazz music.
• Delight in the princely pieces used in aristocratic drinking games. See how they indulged their noble cravings for imported luxuries including chocolate, coffee, tea, sugar, and ice for ice cream.
• Hear how the European appetite for excellence and the American craving for convenience created the first real restaurants.
• Chew on the rise of the café culture and haute cuisine after gluttony became distasteful during the French Revolution.
• Dig into an illustrated discussion about self-sustaining farms and hunting for food— an American freedom in stark contrast to European traditions. Savor the Old World cuisines replicated in the New World among the northern settlements and eat up the new recipes and flavors of the Old South.
  

Museum Details