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Virtue Restaurant is located in Hyde Park in Chicago. Chef Erick Williams celebrates black life by highlighting black culinary traditions, black contributions to service, contributions to culture and art contributions. Williams started exploring cooking southern food during his time as executive chef of MK in 2012. MK has been closed, but it was a fine dining spot opened by Chicago chef Michael Kornick. On the side, Chef Williams cooked “soul food” for art events. He opened up Virtue in 2018. Virtue has a Southern American menu and features works by Black artists.

Theaster was an artist that did an art installation in a home in a rough neighborhood where the whole house would be art. Chef Williams created the dinner for this event. Theaster came to the MK restaurant to eat dinner and gave Chef Williams his first piece of art and that was the beginning of his journey to creating Virtue. Between Theaster, a friend, and a commissioned piece, it would be able to cover the restaurant walls. Theaster has his own wall within the restaurant. 

Theaster’s current piece in the restaurant is titled “Yellow Race Riot Hose” and uses decommissioned water hoses from fire departments to break up race riots, which symbolizes the race riots in the Civil Rights Movement. Another piece of art is, “Our Extended Relatives” by Raelis Vasquez and is the biggest in the restaurant. It is inspired by a photo of Langston Hughes, the poet and activist and demonstrates the diversity and comfortableness of celebrating together. Three pieces are called “Chicago is Iraq?” by Amanda Williams which portrays Chicago’s toughest neighborhoods.

A few years ago, the artist Kerry James Marshall had a show in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago that Chef Williams walked through. Part of the show was an interview with Kerry where Kerry talked about how when he learned art, all the subjects were white and it wasn’t until he mastered art that he was able to tell a story about subjects that looked like him. In a similar vein, Chef Williams was trained to cook Italian and French, but is now celebrated for southern food. He argues that cooking collard greens is just as complicated as cooking a cassoulet.

This business model of including pieces of art within a restaurant draws customers into the restaurant and can be applied to other restaurants. It combines the art of food and physical works of art in a harmonious way. The addition of art welcomes audiences into the space and acts as a celebration of art, creativity, and culture. In comparison to an art gallery, the restaurant allows customers to enjoy and savor the experience of being in an art space.

Source: https://www.foodandwine.com/news/at-this-chicago-restaurant-black-art-decorates-the-walls