You heard us right, a restaurant is opening up in London where people will be able to go dine naked if they choose! The Bunyadi, which is the first naked restaurant in the city will open up in June 2016 and stay open for 3 months.
While we often will pick a place to eat based on the food being served a new trend has emerged where you choose a restaurant based on the experience it provides. That is why the Bunyadi concept is so intriguing to people in London.
As more people seek the natural and raw experience trends like this may become a lot more common. While there are nude beaches and even nude hot springs the idea of a nude public restaurant is a bit out of the ordinary.
Guests will come in, change into a gown, remove all of their electronics, and then they will have the option to disrobe if they choose. This will create as natural an environment as you can get. The staff will also be mostly clothing free depending on their role. Seb Lyall, the founder of The Bunyadi answered a few important questions about his new restaurant.
What will be on the menu?
The food will be cooked over a wood burning fire and they will have both vegan and non-vegan options. The intent is to create as much of a natural atmosphere as possible so the food with be completely chemical free, cook naturally, and you will be provided with edible utensils as well.
“We had to choose the menu based on nudity,” says Seb Lyall, the Bunyadi’s founder. “Once we had announced the concept, all the jokes started coming out, all the tweets, all the articles. And they all said one thing: ‘Don’t spill the soup!’ So, it’s no hot soup or broths for us.”
The food will be prepared without gas stoves or any electronics.
“For safety reasons, we can’t have staff cooking naked. But that’s the least of our worries,” Lyall explains. “The really difficult thing is cooking food without using anything gas-based, or any blenders. We’re even having to make our own flour. But it’s the nudity that everyone talks about – and that’s the easiest bit.”
Is this idea even legal?
In the UK you can be naked in public as long as you aren’t doing it to shock or upset anyone.
“We briefly thought they might have a problem with it, but it all seems to be fine at the moment,” he says. “What we’re doing is totally legal and ethical. After all, being naked in the UK is perfectly legal, even on the street. So, why wouldn’t we be allowed to do that in a confined, private space?”
Finding Good Confident Staff Members
This is a really good question considering how vulnerable it may be to walk around naked in front of customers. Believe it or not, finding staff wasn’t as hard as you may think.
“How did we recruit staff who are happy to be naked? We didn’t have to – we had people approach us,” explains Lyall.
“We didn’t make them get naked during interviews, though. We couldn’t, really. If I asked people to strip and said: ‘Show me how you look before I present you in front of my customers,’ then it’s against the whole ethos of the restaurant. We don’t want anyone to be judged on their bodies.”
What will the staff be wearing?
Functionality won out on this one.
“For logistical reasons, our waiting staff will be covering their bits and bobs,” says Lyall. “If you’re sitting and someone is serving you, the height of your face and certain parts of their bodies is kind of the same. It’s something that didn’t occur to us at first, but a customer pointed it out in an email. We were like: ‘Woah, OK. That’s interesting … one of our potential customers has thought about it, so we should think about it.’ That’s the way we let the concept develop.”
How will you convince people to come eat here?
Far many people the idea of wearing clothing 24/7 is a big demand. Once they get home they like to bring a few, if not all of the layers off. So how hard could it be to convince them to do it in public?
“People eat naked anyway. A lot of people eat naked sitting at home,” Lyall says.
“The only new thing is convincing them to do it in public. It wasn’t a problem in the end, though. We had 40,000 people apply, and we’ve only got 6,000 places. At this rate, we might open it as a permanent restaurant.”
What about Health, Safety, and Sanitation?
“There really aren’t any extra health and safety issues to worry about by having a naked restaurant,” says Lyall, “although we got a lot of guests asking: ‘Is it going to be hygienic for me to sit naked on a seat that someone else has been nude on?’ We’ve had to point out that you will be sitting on a gown, which is effectively a cushion.”
This is a really good question because if you are already going to be naked you might want to feel safe and comfortable too. This is also probably another reason why people will be leaving their cell phones, with cameras, outside of the eating area.
Let us know in the comments below if YOU would eat here!
Sources- mindbodygreen.com — theguardian.com