On saturday we went to the New Britain Museum of American Art in Connecticut, and took advantage of the opportunity to meander downriver to Old Saybrook.

We arrived at the museum before noon, while admission was still free, and so did everyone else. We were right behind a largish group being led by a knowledgeable docent who was no louder than necessary for her job, but too loud for us, so we took refuge in the Museum Cafe.

We go to a lot of museums, especially art museums, and in our experience the cafe is often disappointing, offering little more than Saran-wrapped day-old tuna-fish sammidges and plastic bottles of Pepsi. Fortunately this seems to be changing as more and more museums recognize that walking around and learning for a few hours can make you tired and hungry. A good dining experience can turn an exhausting afternoon into a pleasurable visit that warrants a return visit. 

We were very pleasantly surprised to see that the Cafe on the Park is excellent! It doesn't have a lot, but what it has is very good and artfully presented. We each got the quiche du jour, an asparagus and Brie quiche served in a point of a white triangular plate, with the rest of the plate filled with a delicious salad (not ice-box cold iceberg lettuce) with a proper raspberry vinaigrette (not gunky-sweet) and two cheery cherry tomatoes balancing the corners. It was so cute I wanted to fetch the camera from the car (naturally we did not bring it into the museum), but the subarctic temperatures delayed my prompt decision, and the way Lorna tucked into it rendered the decision moot.

In addition to the well-prepared lunch, they served a true local soft drink: I got the Sarsaparilla and Lorna got the Cream Soda from Avery's Sodas of New Britain - Always Ask for Avery's!

Art museums are a great place to show some creativity and quality in food, but that opportunity is too often neglected. The Cafe on the Park at the New Britain Museum of American Art is catered by Jordan Caterers, and the possibility of a quality light lunch at the museum really improves the experience.

Here are some art museums we have visited, indicating noteworthy cafes. If a museum is listed without noting the cafe, either it doesn't have one, or there was nothing memorable about it, or we hated it but maybe that was bad luck:

• The Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, ME
• The Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME
• Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME - cafe has good local Carpe Diem coffee, otherwise Saran-wrap forgettable
• Ogunquit Museum of American Art, Ogunquit, ME - May - October only, I think they have no cafe
• Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH - good cafe in a wide-open courtyard with many plants
• St Johnsbury Atheneum, St Johnsbury VT - no cafe
• Shelburne Museum Complex, Shelburne, VT - not fancy, but locavore
• Brattleboro Art Museum - no cafe
• Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA - excellent seasonal cafe with outdoor seating, mediocre indoor snack bar in the main lobby
• The MFA in Boston has a legendary cafe
• Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum, Boston - has a brand-new Cafe G that has not opened at the time of this writing
• Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA - very limited seasonal cafe, otherwise just snack bar.
• Worcester Art Museum - good cafe
• Springfield Museums Complex - vending machines only
• Cahoon Museum of American Art, Falmouth, MA - cute little museum, but no cafe
• RISD Museum of Art, Providence, RI
• Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT
• New Britain Museum of American Art - excellent, imaginative Cafe on the Park