Self initiated menu brief - thematic things

To accompany my initial artist research I thought it best to research existing menus and illustrations that would help me along my way. I had already looked through Teagle and Simpson's work and that was a step in the right direction, below are some of my favourite finds.

The two on the top left hand corner were taken by my friend, it was this awesome Mexican themed restaurant in Cardiff named Mission Burrito and the illustrations are simple yet effective. I also came across some impressive typography based chalk board designs which really work in a rustic setting. Finally I came across some spot illustrations which were very well regimented and acted almost like an infographic illustration which I thought was pretty cool.
At this point in the brief I was sure that I was going to illustrate a menu so now it came to deciding what theme would I go for.

I first started off looking around for strange themed restaurants in London to get some ideas and I came across some very weird places indeed. La Bodega Negra for example had some very odd directions which included you going through an illuminated entrance to a seedy-looking sex shop with no reassurance what so ever that you are in fact still going the right way for dinner, you then follow a tunnel and you eventually arrive in this amazing restaurant. Archipelago was also a strange one as it claims to alter your perception of time from the outside world, the randomly placed cultural paraphernalia and the unorthodox food choices such as crickets and crocodile add to the illusion that you are not in London.

I searched for a while, coming across circus themes, steak house themes and I even found one that had handbags hanging from the ceiling which was fairly odd. I liked the idea of either a Mexican theme or maybe a Medieval theme as they both had a lot of content that I could include in my busy menu.