Rodin Garden Bar
Rodin Museum
Philadelphia
Aug. 16, 2024
Over the summer months, the garden at the Rodin Museum transforms. Guests flock to what becomes the weekly Friday Pop-Up Garden Bar, where they can explore drinks and small plates and see what pairs best with the garden’s stunning works of art — all by sculptor Auguste Rodin.
The Bordeaux Blanc Wine is paired with Eve. Eve’s original sin is her disobedience to God — her partaking in fruit. Wine, born from fruit, and sin are ultimately connected through Gluttony. Bordeaux Blanc is a white wine, specifically. The drink can be broken down to its parts, where white is associated with purity, and wine with sin. Eve herself is represented in the Bible fighting the dichotomy of purity and sin.
The Gougeres are paired with The Three Shades. The Three Shades are different renderings that Rodin made of his Adam sculpture, but these three awaken not as Adam, but as sleep, death, and a loss of consciousness. The trio pair perfectly with the French pastry bread as they are all pretty similar in form by nature, the pastry dough is pipped onto a baking sheet with the hopes of uniformity, as are the Adams copied from a single starting form, but they differ as varied forms of existence and poses for the Shades, as the inside of the pastry differs from its neighbor on the sheet pan once fully baked. Also, if you eat enough of this cheesy bread, you’ll probably end up pretty sleepy, maybe leading to a loss of consciousness or even death.
The Hotel Paloma Grapefruit Summer Ale is paired with the Stone Fountain Head that sits above the reflection pool. The fountain is attributed to an uncredited artist, but the shell is credited to Paul Philippe Cret and Jacques Gréber. The Fountain evokes stillness and motion — a rush of water flows into a steady, calm pool. The beer, meanwhile, moves its drinker to be more social and outgoing, but also will slow them down the more they drink.
The Medjool Dates stuffed with goat cheese mixed with lemon and spices are paired with the famous Gates of Hell. Besides matching in visual texture to the gates — with so many figures trying their hardest to climb up from hell, the sculpture only makes sense up close, but from afar the light and shadows perfectly mimic the dark grooves and wrinkles of the fruit — the dates are also bursting with cheese, which resembles the figures on the gate who are trying to burst out of Hell.
The Yuzu Madeleine is paired with Adam. The bright foliage behind the window where Adam stood framed him in green. In golden hour the whole scene reminded me of French decadence, which paired perfectly with the very sweet Yuzu Madeleine, a very French pastry eaten traditionally at tea time.
Every Friday during the summer months, the Rodin Garden Bar is open from 4 p.m. until 8:30 m. serving beer, wine, and snacks while allowing guests to roam the gardens and even check out the indoor sculptures, too. Plan your trip now, the Garden Bar is only open until the end of August!
