Is cooking an art or a craft?

January 30, 2026 by
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When does something move from being a finely honed craft into a work of art? That’s the question being asked in Denmark, after its culture minister, Jakob Engel-Schmidt announced a new initiative to classify gastronomy as a fine art. If this goes forward, it would be the first time a country has made such a move. The initiative is still in the early stages, and will proceed by gathering experts together to consider the classification.

Just a few of the hundreds of cookbooks with “art” in the title

Placing gastronomy on the same level as traditional arts like painting, sculpture, or music would allow chefs to receive funding that would allow them to explore their creativity without having to worry about practical considerations like keeping a restaurant afloat in a challenging economy. Chefs like Rasmus Munk are among those applauding this move. “I get jealous of other artistic fields,” says Munk, noting that “musicians don’t have to write their new album while they are onstage performing.”

Other chefs are more reluctant to identify themselves as artists. Pioneering chefs such as Joël Robuchon and Thomas Keller reject the idea, saying they are craftspeople, not artists. They believe that chefs, while they employ creativity and explore the aesthetics of food, are not looking to evoke emotions or express a concept in the same way an artist makes a statement.

Likewise, the art world can’t agree on whether gastronomy belongs in the same category as traditional fine arts. Also, if the classification means more people vying for the same dollars, it will be a hard sell. Grants and funding are already tough to get and other artists might resent having extra competition.

While I believe that cooking and baking can be creative outlets, I am not sure I would classify those as being on the same level as painting, sculpture, or music. For one thing, while the visual display of food can be admired through a photograph, only a few people will be able to experience the scents and flavors. If food cannot be shared widely the same way a painting can be viewed or music can be heard, does that automatically disqualify it from being art? That said, some of my cookbooks contain photos and recipes for dishes that are meant to convey emotion or meaning that transcends the ingredients themselves. That seems like it would qualify as art, and the way people would experience it is to make the dish themselves. Where do you land on this debate?

Category: Antipasto

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3 Comments

  • Fyretigger  on  January 31, 2026

    Apologies in advance for this being so long. The topic inspired me to a thoughtful response.

    The transience aspect does not disqualify something from being art (e.g., installation art, sidewalk chalk drawings, Bansky level graffiti, etc.), so that’s not an issue.

    Is cooking designed to elicit an emotional response? Of course it is, though I hope I never eat a dish intended to make feel the horrors of war.

    So for a comparison model, I think we can look at print making. Hokusai’s “The Great Wave Off Kanagawa” is one of the most widely produced and known woodblock prints in the world. It is in the fine art collections of a number of museums including the Met in NYC. But Hokusai’s work was a drawing that was intended to create a woodblock print. The drawing then went to a print house where it was turned into wood blocks by one set of crafts people and transferred to another set of crafts people for intricate, layered printing. The final print is work of art, whose creation involved an artist and then many crafts people.

    Gastronomy is similar. A chef creates the original dish, but for the patron, the dish is the work of many crafts people, akin to the print making process. But the chef is the artist. The crafts people make it possible for it to be experienced by a wider public (like the print maker).

    So I will argue the creative chef IS an artist.

    But we aren’t just talking about whether it’s an art, but about it being recognized as such for art funding. Like most fine arts once were, Fine Cooking is essentially an apprenticeship system. Da Vinci apprenticed in the studio of Andrea del Verrocchio, similarly Grant Achatz (Alinea) apprenticed under Thomas Keller (The French Laundry). That apprenticeship system has all but collapsed in the traditional fine arts. It is alive and well in fine cuisine.

    So, who are you going to give arts funding to in gastronomy? Promising, struggling chefs? Aren’t there many competitive cooking shows for that? Failing treasured restaurants? For all they have done for the food world, should The French Laundry or Chez Panisse be given taxpayer money so the well-to-do can continue to have the option of experiencing an exquisite meal? That would be a hard NO from me.

    I think there is a place for the government to fund things like creating a market for consumption of a wild caught/foraged invasive species, or adapting an agriculture region to climate change. But that funding should not come out of fine arts funding, it should come out of commerce and agriculture initiatives.

  • KatieK1  on  January 31, 2026

    When AI replaces the bulk of human labor, arts and crafts will be there to make our lives worthwhile.

  • FuzzyChef  on  February 2, 2026

    Yes. The answer is yes.

    We have this debate in art pottery all the time.

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