Where to Buy Kitchen Wall Art (That Makes You Look Worldly)
April 11, 2023If you ask us, the kitchen is the most important room of the house. It’s where people cook, eat, make cocktails, have sex on the island, have sex on the floor, have sex bent over the counter, and… uh, make coffee. It would follow, then, that you’d want to give a lot of attention to how you decorate the space. If you’re currently rocking a “Live, Laugh, Love” sign or one of those discount-store placards saying something about how it’s time to drink wine, honestly, more power to you. But if you want to go a little more curated with your aesthetic and make your kitchen not only a place for making avocado toast, but also a reflection of your design intuition, we humbly offer this massive list of editor’s picks for how to adorn the walls of your kitchen and dining room without it looking like a college dorm. Don’t worry—you won’t have to shell out an entire paycheck to upgrade your space (unless you want to kings), because not only is the art fuego, it’s also fairly affordable.
Here are some ways to take your kitchen wall art to the next level, from decorative plates and iconic cat clocks to vintage amaro posters. BRB: Talking about all this art’s made us hungry—we’re gonna go make a sandwich.
Get spicy
Spices in a cupboard? Boring. Spices on a starburst-shaped mid-century modern Danish teak spice rack? We could always stand for a bit of Japandi energy in our kitchen space.
The most iconic kitchen clock
Which came first, the kitchen or the kitchen cat clock? This guy is a timeless piece of kitchen decor, at once functional in its design and omnipotent in its essence (and Mona Lisa-esque gaze).
Vintage food posters
VICE staff writer Becca Blasdel grew up with a dad who’s an avid vintage poster collector. Their kitchen was filled with amazing vintage food advertisements, including this giant French chef (which she still has), which has made her a collector and connoisseur of this type of art to this day. Considering that an original artwork can go for more than a year’s rent, opt for a reproduction (unless you feel like ballin’ out on an OG Warhol Campbell’s Soup can) so you too can deck out your space in food ephemera at a fraction of the price.
Matchbooks from your favorite restaurants
What’s the best thing about visiting your favorite restaurants? Obviously, the free merch—be it pens or an artfully designed matchbook. While you can always DIY a shadowbox with your top 10, if you haven’t thought to start collecting, you can buy lots of vintage matchbooks on Etsy, or pick up one of Tess Ramirez’s iconic prints featuring matchbooks from the best restaurants in a bunch of food-centric cities. We found the latter over at West Elm.
A plate wall goes hard
Whether you go vintage or brand new, there’s nothing like a sick wall of decorative plates, and the best thing is that they don’t have to match. Another amazing thing about plates as wall art? You now have something to collect wherever you go—speaking as a thrift-obsessive, writer Becca Blasdel’s walls are adorned with collectable MTA plates, oyster plates, and vintage souvenir plates from across the globe.
Let ‘em know you’d rather be in Italy
If you look hard enough, there are a ton of amazing, vintage-style French and Italian spirit posters on Etsy. I’m not talking about the boring shit you see at overrated red sauce joints; no, there’s some really sick deep cuts here, and you can get lost for hours looking for them. Find a beautiful, old ad for your favorite amaro, or just a super bizarre print of a bear mainlining Campari. It’s all there.
Show off your pasta knowledge
Get a fun (and useful!) poster of all the pasta styles to memorize all the different noodle styles and impress your next Tinder date, or opt for a vintage pasta advertisement and express your admiration of carbs in style. If nothing else, this kind of artwork can serve as a source of inspiration for when you decide to break out the Marcato Atlas 150.
Honor your fave pizza town
Cities By the Slice makes these amazing posters of all the best local slices from your tons of different regions. You can find a ton of American cities here, but we’re specifically including Chicago and St. Louis, because Chicago pizza rules and we don’t care that you’re mad about St. Louis-style pizza.
Food art that’s not tacky
Sometimes pictures of food can end up looking like you live in a Subway Sandwich chain, but that doesn’t mean you have to shy away from food-adjacent photography or drawings. Instead of going for still life fruit photos of restaurants and sketches of food from around the world give a more subtle nod.
Kitchen tarot
You’re obsessed with Co-Star, brew your own potions, and know the tarot deck like the back of your hand? You’re in luck, because this artist makes tongue-in-cheek kitchen-themed tarot so you can get those witchy vibes even when you’re just microwaving a Lean Cuisine.
The Rec Room staff independently selected all of the stuff featured in this story. Want more reviews, recommendations, and red-hot deals? Sign up for our newsletter.