Pretty as a picture

There's a reason that many dishes on spring restaurant menus look like works of art, Mike Peters discovers.

Can an artist and a chef find meaning together in deep red?

I've climbed an eerily lit staircase to find out. It isn't my usual way to get to dinner, but Tru Wang has made the experience an extra-sensory pleasure.

Wang and Michael Goo are founding partners of Beijing's brand-new art and fashion venue Tru-M, and they used their gallery's opening exhibition earlier this month to combine their passions with food. For the exhibition Virtue, by Korean artist Tae-gyeong Yoon, they invited TRB's chef Franck Pelux to study Yoon's work. The result was a five-course wine-paired menu titled When Art Meets Food & Food Meets Art.

Yoon's works of intertwining lines and dots represent humans' emotional and psychological roadmaps, some of which are being stimulated by our trudge upstairs in the near-dark. When we reach the top, we are nearly enmeshed in a maze of cotton ropes, crafted by Wang to evoke the threads in Yoon's multimedia art. At the end of the maze, the dining room is divided into intimate nooks with tables for two to 10 guests.

The Meaning of Deep Red is a Yoon piece that Pelux re-envisions as a starter plate of Cherry Foie Gras, a potent combination of colors and flavors that Goo says he instantly recognized.

"I know where that dish came from," he says with a grin. "The others? I'm still trying to make the connections."

Connections, interpretations and inspirations are highly individual, and every diner may not see precisely what Goo sees. As the old saying goes, the journey is as important as the arrival.

Events connecting art and food are becoming popular at restaurant venues, too. The "connections" don't have to be literal.

At Ce La Vi in Hong Kong, for example, chef Kun Young Pak (Phillip) has designed a menu for Savoring Art Month through the end of March, with fine-art inspired dishes to complement a series of art exhibitions and events at the resort. His seafood poke with its vibrant fresh fish and vegetables takes inspiration from Murakami's flowers and geometric shapes, but not a specific artwork. Blackened miso and a chocolate trio evoke Banksy's mostly monochromatic satirical street art and graffiti.

Hong Kong has been doing art-food events for years in the spring, thanks in part to the city's Art Basel event, which has attracted an average of more than 60,000 visitors since it launched in 2013 with 245 top galleries from 35 countries and territories. This year's Art Basel runs from March 25 to 27, but related events are slated before and after the official three days. In fact, March is now the annual Hong Kong Arts Month.

Armani/Aqua brings art to its Central restaurant location with the art-inspired dish Tapestry on a Plate and a cocktail billed as the perfect artistic aperitif. Both the dish and cocktail are available together for HK$398 ($51) all month. The featured plate mimics the bright hues in the works of Katharina Grosse: Orbetello sea bass carpaccio is layered with avocado, seasonal vegetables and toasted hazelnuts, and decorated with lemon foam (HK$268). The complementing cocktail takes inspiration from artist Hiroshige's muted tones and Japanese iconography. Dubbed Geisha's Encounter, the drink combines Tanqueray gin, Cocchi Rosa, yuzu and fresh lemon, shaken with peach matcha and egg white (HK$138). A delicate piece of traditional Japanese rice paper tapestry overlays the glass.

In Beijing, chef Amedeo Ferri's interpretations of works by the Chinese artist Zhu Danian are both fanciful and clearly drawn from specific works. Dessert, in fact, is literally "drawn" by the chef at Barolo in the Ritz-Carlton Beijing: He uses yogurt, chocolate, strawberry puree and mint powder to create a dessert at tableside, served on a picture frame.

The hotel restaurant will serve the Art & Gastronomy menu through the end of April. Last year Barolo put together a food-and-art promotion with a living artist, and Zhu's family was impressed enough to approach the hotel about celebrating the centenary of Zhu's birth in 1916 in a similar way.

Ferri was particularly excited by the painting Magnolia, with a branch of buds and blossoms tucked into an ancient blue-and-white porcelain vase. The chef was aware that the magnolia is a symbol of nobility, perseverance and love of nature in China, and the strength of its bloom also stands for self-respect and self-esteem. His menu begins with a plate of fried langostine and hints of garden bounty in homage to that painting. Lily and Lilacs are represented by other dishes.

"Creating the delicacies is the same as making a painting," says Ferri, who combines seasonal ingredients and floral elements to complement the flowers that dominate Zhu's works, which are on loan for display in the restaurant. "It needs creativity and passion."

Bars, too, have gotten into the act.

At M bar in the Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong, Agung Prabowo is mixing up cocktails with shocking colors like the paintings of Andy Warhol, to complement the Warhol in China photo exhibition from Monday through March 26. The three art-inspired drinks (each HK$195 or $25), include The Camouflage (Herno gin, Cointreau, lemon, egg white, half and half, raspberry and hibiscus dust) and Velvet Underground, which was particularly inspired by Warhol's iconic 1966 painting Banana.

Meanwhile, at the Langham Hong Kong's Palm Court, pastry chef Matthieu Godard and his culinary team have designed a Blooming Art Afternoon Tea, with a selection of five colorful pastries decorated as a bouquet of blossoms. But on March 25 and 26, the art is you. British illustrator Tanya Bennett, whose fashion vignettes have been featured by prestigious brands such as Christian Louboutin, Cartier and Lane Crawford, will be creating guest's portraits to take home.

Contact the writer at miachaelpeters@chinadaily.com.cn

If you go

BEIJING

Barolo

Art & Gastronomy menu through April at Ritz-Carlton Beijing, 83A Juanguo Road, China Central Place, Chaoyang district. 010-5908-8151.

Tru-M

In Sanlitun Taikooli North N2-16-26; call 15101514820 for information on upcoming events.

HONG KONG

Ce La Vi

Special menu through March 31; 25/F, California Tower, 32 D'Aguilar Street, Central district. 852-3700-2300.

Armani/Aqua

2/F, Landmark Chater (Chater House), 8 Connaught Road, Central district. 852-3583-2828.

Palm Court

Blooming Art Afternoon Tea available from March 21 to May 31; HK$348 for one person and HK$598 for two persons (plus service charge).

Guest portrait experience only offered on March 25 (2:15 - 6:30 pm) and March 26 (2:15 - 4:15 pm); at the Langham, 8 Peking Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon district. 852-2132-7898.

M bar

Warhol themed cocktails (HK$195) March 13-26; at Mandarin Oriental, 5 Connaught Road, Central district. 852-2825-4002.

Clockwise from above: A flower painting inspires a colorful dish at Barolo in Beijing; chef Amedeo Ferri “paints” a dessert on a pictureframe plate; a salmon dish looks like a work of art at Ce La Vi, Hong Kong. Photos Provided To China Daily