warmhouse story COLLABORATIOns

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Warmhouse Story joined the Minneapolis Institute of Art to create in gallery dining on two occasions. Founded in the 1880s, the Minneapolis Institute of Art is home to more than 90,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history. It is one of the largest art museums in the United States. The results were wonderfully immersive.

The first partnership focused on crearting atmosphere for a six dinner series honoring two exhibits; Van Gogh and the Olive Groves and Dressed by Nature: Textiles of Japan. Jason joined two award winning chefs and a highly regarded sommelier as they brought to life a Kaiseki Dining Experience (dining through storytelling). The first in-gallery dining event of its kind, the series allowed Jason to create among the grand and breathtaking paintings in the Baroque Gallery. Guests dined surrounded by dried forsythia leaf creations draped in ribbon and received scrolls and cards by Warmhouse Story that told the tale of the courses for the evening, including a baby dried bouquet.

For Jason’s second collaboration with MIA, he joined two award-winning Chefs and a celebrated Somollier to bring back some atmospheric magic. This time, the challenge was to bring to life the art of Botticelli and Renaissance Florence: Masterworks of the Uffizi in the form of a Renaissance Wedding Banquet Feast. Each section of the table was designed around one of the pieces in the exhibit- replicating the use of color, proportion movement, and subject matter. The dinner was a journey of atmospheric overload as the guests dined, family style, to interpretations of foods from the period that ended in a deliciously gluttonous dessert course with a multitude of options. The dinner, for sixty, was held on three occasions in the Jade Gallery (adjacent to the Botticelli exhibit). You can see some behind the scenes work on the Warmhouse Story Landing Page in the featurette.