Vintage Food & Drink Posters

A chef selling stock cubes. A crab on Guinness time. A bottle of Orangina with holiday plans. Someone understood that appetite and absurdity make excellent dining companions.

Digitally restored reproductions from £19.99, printed on 200gsm Enhanced Matte Fine Art Paper with pigment inks. Printed locally and shipped from the UK, US and Canada. Supplied unframed.

1950s HP Sauce food advertising poster showing feast table of dishes with The One and Only slogan

Vintage Poster Archives brings together food and drink posters by Cappiello, Villemot, Gilroy and other artists with a persuasive appetite for colour. Around them are coffee, biscuits, chocolate, mustard, aperitifs and the occasional magnificently overqualified mascot. Pick something with a bit of mischief for the kitchen, or let a French drinks advertisement set the mood above the trolley. The walls can join in.

A kitchen deserves good company

Food advertising can be wonderfully generous with its pleasures. A bright tin, an unlikely chef or an impossible serving suggestion gives an everyday purchase the attention normally reserved for a grand occasion. The result can be funny, elegant or just thoroughly appetising.

Start with what you enjoy. Coffee drinkers have Cafés du Brésil and Cafés Jeanne d’Arc to consider. For the cook, Bouillon Kub, Huile Lesieur, Cirio and Savora bring ingredients and kitchen characters into the picture. Chocolate advertisements offer another sort of temptation, including Cappiello’s Chocolat Klaus and E. Wedel designs. A favourite ingredient is a more personal starting point than trying to match everything in the room.

From aperitif hour to the drinks trolley

The drinks selection includes Guinness, Orangina, Perrier, absinthe and a range of French aperitifs and spirits. These advertisements sell a mood as much as a bottle: refreshment, sociability, a small escape from the day. Villemot’s Orangina designs and Cappiello’s bottle advertisements approach that invitation in quite different ways.

A drinks corner can take a confident single image. For a dining room, consider a pair linked by colour or by the occasion they suggest. Coffee and biscuits make an easy conversation; an aperitif and a culinary advertisement can imply a whole evening without becoming a matching set.

Choose for the way the room is used

In a small kitchen, a clear figure or a strong silhouette can read well among shelves and everyday objects. A larger dining wall offers room for detailed lettering and a busier composition. Keep a paper print away from direct steam and splashes, and check its dimensions against the actual wall before choosing.

Explore Cappiello posters to follow one artist across the pantry and beyond. The wider advertising collection adds bicycles, watches and other appetites.