Guides: Culinary History and Cookbook Collection at RBSC: Menu Collections

Search Tips to find Menus

Tips to find menus:

Begin searching for menus in key menu databases
A general internet search is not likely to lead to menus (unless you are looking for a specific restaurant), although it can help you identify pertinent collections.
If you are focused on a cuisine, do a general internet search for menu collections that specialize in that cuisine.
- E.g., search for “Chinese menu collections”. This will lead you to the Spiller Menu Collection at the University of Toronto.
If you are focused on a location, look for libraries, archives, and universities that might have menu collections for that location.
- E.g., if you’re interested in Cajun cuisine, search for “menu collections Louisiana”. This will lead you to the Louisiana Menu and Restaurant Collection at Tulane University.
If you are looking for a particular restaurant, try a general internet search and then the major databases (CIA, NYPL, etc.)
If you are looking for a particular ingredient or dish, try the CIA database first, then try a general internet search using quotation marks.
Tip: if you are looking for a dish that is written in French, try using google.fr rather than google.com.

Content created by Kristen Howard, history liaison librarian

Menu Collections

Cornell Menu Collection
A collection of over 10,000 menus, providing evidence of the manners, mores, and food habits of earlier times.
National Restaurant Association Menu Collection, Johnson & Wales University
More recent collection, c. 1980-2010. Many are from menu design contests
Spiller Collection (University of Toronto Scarborough)
Largest collection of Chinese cuisine menus in the world, approx. 400 are digitized.
Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library
One of the most Significant collections of culinary materials in Canada, the Fisher holds over 40 manuscript cookbooks, significant published cookbooks, and a substantial menu collection.
University of Washington, Historical Menu Collection
Primarily menus from 1889-2003 and the Puget Sound area

Online Collections

Bibliothèque municipale de Dijon Collection de menus
After clicking “consulter”, you can navigate through different types of menus via the link tree on the left-hand side.
A century of dining out (Grolier Club)
Online exhibition curated by collector Henry Voigt displayed at the Grolier Club in New York. It features 225 menus that reflect the first hundred years of their use in American society, ranging from restaurants and hotels to Mississippi steamboats, utopian communities, and grand estates.
Chung Collection - (UBC)
The Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection is an outstanding collection of archival documents, photographs, books and artifacts related to three broad themes: British Columbia History, Immigration and Settlement and the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. The collection includes hundreds of menus from Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) properties, including their hotels and cruises.
Culinary Institute of America
The Culinary Institute of America’s special collection of over 40,000 historical menus includes menus from CIA restaurants and donations from major menu collectors
Imogene Lim Restaurant Menu Colleciton - Canadian Menus (VIU)
Selected restaurant menus and ephemera from the collection of Imogene Lim. The majority of these items are associated with Chinese restaurants, primarily in Canada and the United States, but also other locations.
Menu Collection - Los Angeles Public Library
Menus: The Art of Dining (UNLV)
The goal of this project is to share a rich cultural resource that has had limited exposure and use despite its fascinating content and research potential.
Museums Victoria Collection
A wonderfully easy collection to access and review. The entire digitized holdings is keyword searchable and includes menus in many different subject groupings. Their ‘sensitive material’ warning is remarkably effective.
Pan American World Airways Records
The Pan American World Airways digital collection features a variety of materials digitized from the Pan Am records at the University of Miami Libraries Special Collections. In operation from 1927 until 1991, Pan Am was an iconic and groundbreaking airline beloved by travelers worldwide.
Smithsonian Open Access
A quick search for menus brings up over 4,000 results; all open access images
What's on the Menu (NYPL)
With approximately 45,000 menus dating from the 1840s to the present, The New York Public Library’s restaurant menu collection is one of the largest in the world, used by historians, chefs, novelists and everyday food enthusiasts.