Chuck Williams Culinary Arts Museum

This little museum is great. It’s free and open to the public. Good stop on a tour of Napa. The first floor also has some food and a tap wine bar that is self service. There is a pretty garden with edible plants and outdoor seating.

Lovely, cute little museum celebrating European high cuisine & culinary history, filled with beautiful, shiny, classic kitchen tools from the past. The grounds outside the building are a nice stroll, too! Free entrance, plentiful parking.

This is an amazing museum with a dizzying array of culinary equipment. I would like more explanation of the items and their history. The displays would be more enjoyable with numbers on the key and the items so one would know which piece you are looking at instead of trying to guess from the minimalist title and no description.

Fine collection of all kinds of culinary tools and cookware, bread baking. Free admission.

An extraordinary museum that opens a whole world to fine culinary. A must visit!

Massive collection of cookware housed in a beautiful facility.

Great exposition of historical cooking tools.

In the hands of a Chef. Tools to power creativity,productivity and enjoyment in the kitchen. Cooking has played a crucial role in human development. What started as a basic survival skill has evolved to become an endeavor that, in many ways, defines civilization and society.

Ever wondered about how Williams Sonoma started? The Chuck Williams Culinary Art Museum houses the personal collection of the Williams Sonoma founder. Over four thousand artifacts that showcase the diversity, beauty and functionality of cookware, bakeware and kitchen tools. Interesting to see the wall filled with copper clad bundt pans. So many displays organized by theme and displayed beautifully. Gorgeous rolling pins. Butter molds. Coffee pots. Whisks. The historic kitchen displays are very interesting. The museum is located in the CIA, the Culinary Institute of America at Copia. Fortunately it is free as it is a very small museum. Perfect for a quick stop. Free parking is also available. Check out the large fork and the culinary garden while you are at the CIA if it is not in triple digits (like it was in October!!)

Bake Your Art Art museum, of sorts, located inside the CIA** at Copia that features over 4,000 unique pieces is cookware, tools, appliances, and other unique culinary gadgets that have been collected thru the years. The Good: *Free! *Definitely interesting for those of us who enjoy cooking, gadgets, tools, and (D) all-of-the-above. The Meh: *While looking at this stuff is cool, it can only provide a certain level of entertainment. Read, it gets kinda boring after about 20 minutes. The Ugly: *The duck press is kinda wild. Read about it if you've never heard or seen one. Conclusion: Interesting for foodies and free, but don't expect to kill more than an hour here. **Culinary Institute of America, not that other CIA

Five stars for being exactly what I hoped: a quick & free museum-y spot in Napa! Amazing pieces collected by Chuck Williams, founder of Williams Sonoma, from his travels in France.

Chuck Williams, the founder of Williams-Sonoma, is credited with introducing French cookware to American households. His extensive collection of European cookware and related cooking artifacts - all in spectacularly good condition - is housed here, on the second floor of the CIA (Culinary Arts Institute) a short walk across the parking lot from Copia. Free to enter, you may as well check out the collection if you're nearby as it's lovely and artfully displayed. It's also appropriate that his estate bequeathed this collection to the CIA, as those who study the culinary arts will likely be those most appreciative of the collection. For the rest of us? Well, it's all quite pretty to look at but far short of compelling. They were smart to make entry free of charge as I'd not have appreciated it at all had an entrance fee been required. If you're in the area and want to see some attractive culinary artifacts (something I've admittedly never given much thought to) this is the place to do so.