Expertise:
Dining, Menus, Restaurant Design, Food & Restaurant Design, Chefs as Celebrities, Visual Culture, Gourmet Dining, Art History, Design HistoryAlison Pearlman’s recent work combines her love of restaurant dining with her experience in the analysis of visual and material culture. Her book Smart Casual: The Transformation of Gourmet Restaurant Style in America (2013) uncovers the cultural roots of recent upsets to norms in casual and formal restaurant design, from the cuisine to the architecture. In May We Suggest: Restaurant Menus and the Art of Persuasion (2018), she considers how contemporary menus of the widest variety try to influence what we buy, how we dine, and how we feel about both.
Pearlman’s writing has appeared in diverse publications, from Afterimage and X-TRA to Popular Culture Review and the Southwest Review. She has given talks about her latest book at the Pacific Food and Beverage Museum (San Pedro), with Los Angeles Magazine food editor Garrett Snyder at Now Serving LA, at the conference Asian Chefs, Cuisine, and Restaurants in a Globalizing World (Pomona College, Claremont, 2018), and at the Orange County Museum of Art.
Selected Publications:
- May We Suggest: Restaurant Menus and the Art of Persuasion (Agate Surrey, 2018)
- Smart Casual: The Transformation of Gourmet Restaurant Style in America (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
- Unpackaging Art of the 1980s (University of Chicago, 2003) (Excerpted in Hulst, Titia, eds., The History of the Western Art Market: A Source Book of Writings on Artists, Dealers, Collectors, and Markets – University of California Press, 2017)
- Co-Author with E.A.T. Smith and J. Rodrigues, Life Death Love Hate Pleasure Pain: Selected Works from the MCA (Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 2002)
“Can I Get a ‘McGangbang?’ on the Weird World of Secret Menus,” Literary Hub, October 11, 2018 - “The Danger of the Din.” The Pathos of Communication, edited by Richard Milazzo, OBSzine 3, September 2017
- “Restaurant Menu Design” in Ken Albala, ed. The Sage Encyclopedia of Food Issues (Ken Albala, ed., SAGE Publications, pp. 1207-1211, 2015; Named by the Library Journal a “Best Reference” title for 2015)
Interviews:
- “Today’s Special: The Art of Restaurant Menus,” LAist/”AirTalk” KPCC 89.3 FM, Jan. 26, 2024
- “A Series of Extremely Scientific Theories on Why Fun is Fun,” Eater, Oct. 11, 2023
- “Menus, Nonnas and the History of Restaurants,” Constant Wonder, BYU Radio, Dec. 7, 2018
(Live author radio interview about May We Suggest: Restaurant Menus and the Art of Persuasion on Sirius XM 143) - “How Restaurants Got So Loud,” The Atlantic, Nov. 27, 2018
- “A Local Professor Ate at 60 L.A. Restaurants to Write the Book on Menus,” Los Angeles Magazine, Oct. 17, 2018
- “Smart Casual: The Transformation of Gourmet Restaurant Style in America,” New Books Network’s Food Channel podcast, May 29, 2014
- “Thinking Allowed,” BBC Radio 4 (Live radio interview with host Laurie Taylor) July 31, 2013
- “Culture on File,” Ireland’s RTE Lyric FM, Four-part interview with host Luke Clancy, June 9, 2013
- The Splendid Table, National Public Radio, interview about May We Suggest: Restaurant Menus and the Art of Persuasion, May 17, 2013
Education:
A.B., Art History, University of California, Berkeley
M.A. & Ph.D., Art History, University of Chicago
Languages:
German (read), French (read)