Five of the best: restaurants for art

Kronenhalle

The walls of this elegant café and restaurant, which first opened its doors in 1924, have been the recipients over the decades of a generous – and far-sighted – policy of allowing hungry and thirsty artists to pay for their meals with art.

The original owners, the Zumsteg family, collected works by Chagall, Miró, Picasso and many others. Kronenhalle’s menu and style of service stay close to its roots too.

Ramistrasse 4, 8001, Zurich, Switzerland, 00 41 44262 9900; www.kronenhalle.com

The Modern

On every trip to New York I plan to include enough time for a Martini and a bar snack at The Modern, where I can enjoy “Clearing”, a large photograph by Thomas Demand that hangs in the Bar Room. Lunch in the restaurant can be even more special as it combines Gabriel Kreuther’s Alsatian cuisine with a view on to the 31 sculptures in the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden.

MoMA, 9W 53rd Street, New York, 00 1 212 333 1220, www.themodernnyc.com

La Colombe d’Or

For more than 80 years this hotel has drawn an international clientele attracted by its food, the epitome of Provençal cooking. Surrounded by a verdant garden, the restaurant has a much cooler interior packed with works collected by its owners, the Roux family. These include pieces by Fernand Léger, Georges Braque, Joan Miró and a ceramic sculpture by the pool by Sean Scully.

Place de Galle, 06570 Saint Paul de Vence, France, 00 33 4 93 32 80 02, www.la-colombe-dor.com (closed from late October to Christmas)

Ballymaloe Hotel

This hotel’s breakfast room combines two sets of particular charms.

For the hungry there is their stunning soda bread, porridge, yoghurt and poached fruits. For the art lover there is a magnificent landscape of the Mourne mountains by Power O’Malley, “The Bathers” by Dame Laura Knight, and one small Jack Butler Yeats, a gift from Ivan Allen to his wife, Myrtle, on her 21st birthday.

Shanagarry, Co Cork, Ireland, 00 353 21 4652 531, www.ballymaloe.ie

Wild Honey

This restaurant, with Anthony Demetre in the kitchen and Will Smith front of house, is where contemporary food and wine meet in an enclave of contemporary photography. This includes works by Lucas Foglia, Tim Walker, Guy Bourdin and Denise Grünstein, many of which are shown in conjunction with gallery owner Michael Hoppen.

12 St George Street, London W1S 2FB, 020 7758 9160, www.wild honeyrestaurant.co.uk