Interest in London’s first clothing-optional restaurant just keeps, er, growing. The summerlong pop-up, called the Bunyadi, will let patrons choose between a clothed and a non-clothed section, kind of like back when smoking was still allowed. And people are psyched — news broke just one week ago, and the wait-list is already at 27,000 names.
Naturally, with all this interest, there are also many questions about how, logistically speaking, dining in the nude works. To sort some of these out, last week the Washington Post talked to the pop-up’s mastermind, restaurateur Seb Lyall, and learned that it took “some time” for his team to figure everything out. The aim is to immerse guests in a “Pangea-like world” that’s been stripped of all its modern impurities — artificial colors, chemicals, metal, plastic, electricity, etc. — in order to help diners achieve some sort of primal Ur-state that corrects this “whole business of victimizing people based on body image.” To do that, phones and cameras are obviously banned, and he says guests will be asked to sit on robes to “avoid contaminating seats” with their bare backsides. It will be relatively dark inside, and tables are positioned so diners can’t gawk over at other tables. Everyone in the kitchen will be fully clothed, meanwhile, but waitstaff will saunter around with “minimal covering” for hygienic purposes.
Just for quick context, the wait-list for Noma Australia, the most highly anticipated pop-up in recent memory, maxed out at 27,000 people.
[Fox News]
