The Muse

The Muse is the café within the Wichita Museum of Art. Even if you’re coming just to eat and not paying admission for the galleries, the Chihuly glass installations are in the great hall outside of the café so you still get to see some art!
I stopped in for some coffee and a snack to tide me over until lunch. They have a full brunch menu with a lot of offerings. I went with a croissant and jam, which was very good and a perfect late morning snack. There is also plenty of space for parties of varying sizes: tables for 2, 4, or 6 people, including a private-​ish room closed off with glass walls.
The atmosphere was lovely. It was nice and quiet on a Saturday morning. The café overlooks the gardens-​in-​progress as well as the Arkansas River, thanks to the floor-​to-​ceiling windows. ‘Twas a perfect place to sip some coffee and enjoy the view.

The restaurant empire of the late Antoine Toubia has waned over the past twenty years, most notably in 2009 when longtime Mediterranean stalwart The Olive Tree closed its doors for good. His influence is still felt thanks to the efforts of his family to carry on in the family business and the remaining restaurants that remain as part of his Latour Management — notably Piccadilly and Bagatelle. There’s another restaurant that falls under the Latour umbrella that gets overlooked, if only because it’s in the Wichita Art Museum and you have to make it past the watchful eye of an admissions volunteer to visit it. Under the control of Joumana Toubia, Antonine’s sister and former executive chef at The Olive Tree, The Muse is among the most well-​staffed and atmospherically appropriate restaurants in Wichita.
The dining room is filled with lots of glass, solid lines, blacks and whites, and sunlight, thanks to the large windows providing an expansive if uninspiring view of the WAM lawn and the Little Arkansas River beyond. It’s a nice space, though it reveals signs of a past life: it’s easy to imagine the original concept as a self-​service cafeteria style, with a barrier guiding the formation of the line. It’s mostly now just a big server area for the one waiter, Carl, to hurry back and forth in service of his regulars. Effervescent and polite to a fault, he’s always sure to drop a «thank you» regardless of how the preceding interaction ended. Carl shuttles back and forth to the counter connecting the kitchen, from which streams food that very nearly could be considered works of art.
I’m not sure what caused Toubia to focus her menu on the Smørrebrød, a Danish version of an open-​faced sandwich, nor am I sure that what is offered at The Muse could even be considered an open-​face sandwich with as much as it exceeds beyond the boundary of the slice of bread provided, but it’s still quite nice to observe and consume. The roast beef invoked the rustic flavors of the British Sunday roast with tender meat and plenty of fresh vegetables; the cranberry chicken salad a delicately arranged menagerie of beets, carrots, apples, blue cheese, and walnuts around a mound of freshly made chicken salad. Neither of these entrées made much sense as a sandwich, but I took the extra piece of bread as a bonus, not a hindrance.
Other parts of the menu can be equally creative, though not necessarily as successful. The French onion burger was served with loads of sweet onions and melty mozzarella to get the point across, though the burger was seared to the point of being dry. The «poached eggs hollandaise,» an inexplicably boring name for an eggs Benedict, contained perfectly poached eggs, crispy bacon, and a slightly fishy-​smelling salmon with soggy skin. With the amount of spice the fish received, it was still more interesting than the ham that’s offered by default.
Considering the amount of space with which the restaurant is working, many of these quibbles can be explained away from the viewpoint of a restaurant that wants to excel beyond the limitations of its confines. I support it, with the exception of how it treats the humble potato. No matter if its quartered lengthwise and baked to a crisp as a «fry» for my burger, if it’s turned into a cake for my Benedict, or it it’s mashed for my roast beef, the spud is dry, starchy, and usually extremely hot, indicating it receives the bulk of its cooking time in the microwave. The best use of the tuber was in the potato cake, though it was probably because there were other ingredients covering up its foibles.
The Muse is a restaurant that does a lot with a limited space, and in doing so manages to represent the space well. It’s the kind of place that’s appropriate for grabbing a late brunch as you gaze over the most picturesque neighborhoods in the city. It complements the art and offers a lunching experience that’s otherwise hard to find in Wichita. It pays respect to the Toubia name through offering a glimpse of the Continental that we are otherwise lacking. We may have moved beyond The Olive Tree, but I suspect we will continue to feel the influence of Toubias for years to come.

One of my friends has asked me not to write this review.
She’s scared.
Scared people will find out and take up all the tables. There’s only 14 of them and the two servers are busy enough now. (Now, don’t come when you’re in a hurry and get grumpy.) As I am only a guest in her town, I agreed, but after today’s roasted vegetables, it’s off.
I’m telling everybody!
Joumana Toubia, (yep, Antoine’s sister) is the capable chef for this little café with the big river view. When I ordered the salmon and orzo without the salmon today, she crafted me a huge vegetarian plate of roasted vegetables and spinach orzo~ fit for a vegetarian V.I.P.
The café sits on the second story of the Wichita Art Museum with a wall of windows. Best on a rainy day~ no squinting. Plus you get to see ducks and other waterfowl, so wear your yellow lenses if you got ‘em.
The front desk lady will want to get you with a museum button, so you’ll have to ‘splain it to her that you’re just there to eat.