Featured Collection: Menus: The Art of Dining

This week’s Partner Spotlight shines bright on our partners at UNLV, University Libraries Digital Collection! We all know the city they are from, but the Digital Collections’ library at UNLV is full of historic and interesting collections. The collection highlighted today is their “Menus: The Art of Dining” collection. This collection features many pictures of various menus, from Wine menus at hotels, to lunch/dinner menus at some of the most historically respected restaurants around the world. This is a great resource to get an idea of the cultures the menus are from, but also what the trendy aesthetics were at the time the menu was created. As you go back further in time, you may notice that calligraphy as well as intricate detail to the art on the menu were heavily focused on. More recently, simplicity and minimalism is the focus. Below are a few favorites in the collection, but in order to get the importance of this collection feel free to browse it yourself!

To the left, you can see the cover of the wine menu at the hotel El Rancho Vegas. This menu cover is from some time between 1950-1960, about 75 years ago.

El Rancho Vegas was a hotel on the “Strip” in Vegas that was opened in 1941, and was short-lived as the owner, Beldon Katleman, knocked it down just 19 years in 1960.

Another favorite from this collection is the lunch menu cover from the Piccadilly Hotel, located in Paris, France. This menu cover dates all the way back to 1889. The artwork and calligraphy were hand-drawn, which speaks for itself.

Once we are able to travel freely again, or the next time you are at a restaurant, pay close attention to the menus, or lists, that you order from. See how times have changed as you compare the menus from today to those of the past from this amazing collection. Feel free to check out our partners’ website, Digital Library, UNLV. You can also head to this collection at the link at the top of the page!