Where haute cuisine meets haute couture
As Gucci opens its first restaurant in Milan, Lucy Holden explores the fashion houses serving up haute cuisine with their haute couture
Should you wear Burberry to lunch at Burberry? Or is that like turning up for a date wearing a jumper with the person’s face on it – too keen? Such was my dilemma this week as I made a midday reservation for two at Thomas’s, the British fashion label’s Regent Street restaurant in London, then wondered what the hell to wear.
Diners in Milan were no doubt wondering similar last week, when a Gucci Osteria serving Gucci tortellini in Parmesan sauce (£17) and Gucci scampi (£26), opened in the fashion capital.
Aside from the obvious question – is Gucci scampi the new fur-trimmed mule – it left another on our tortellinistained lips: why on earth would Gucci open a restaurant?
But reverse up the red carpet, if you will. Because though it seems delicious irony that an industry obsessed with size should be keen to feed us (carbs, no less), given food is so fashionable and fashion so cool, the two sit together as perfectly as black and white piano keys. For years, scene restaurants have been a huge part of the foodie world. Think Robert De Niro’s Nobu and Chiltern Firehouse. Branded eateries are the next, logical step.
Thomas’s, which sits next to and above the flagship Burberry store on Vigo Street, launched in 2015 – and is just one of many high-fashion food havens across the world. In Milan alone you can get Prada panettone (£26) at the label’s bakery, Pasticceria Marchesi, and Cavalli chicken wings for around £7 at Club Cavalli, but I wouldn’t wash it all down with anything but Chanel wine from one of the label’s three vineyards in St Emilion, Margaux and Napa Valley. Cases of 12 are a total bargain at £1,470.
A run-through the world’s other fashionable food and drink options highlights a pattern. There’s the Armani café in Dubai, Dior des Lices in St Tropez (with a sister in Seoul), where you can order a Dior cappuccino and macaroons (if you can handle the calories, pre-beach). Gucci had a restaurant in Shanghai before opening in Milan, and Vivienne Westwood is trailblazing finger sandwiches with afternoon tea (£45) in Hong Kong.
What all these locations have in common is an obsession with image: they’re social-media selfie heaven, where being seen is everything. And being seen to be eating from Gucci’s paisley-print plates, which you can purchase from the adjoining shop on your way out, even better.
Back in the UK we have the charming little sister of Ralph Lauren’s Polo Bar in New York, though rather more subtle, in Regent Street. From 8am, you can wander in for a lobster eggs benedict (£15) and, at a socially-acceptable hour, crack on with the cognac and champagne cocktails (£16). No wonder Lottie Moss, Poppy Delevingne and Lady Kitty Spencer have all bowled through these doors.
For the rest of us, this so-called approachability is why the idea of high-fashion food works so well. Imagine the managers of these brands standing around flip-charts, The Thick of It-style, brainstorming the concept. Fashion is fashionable, and so is food. But fashion is expensive – it was reported this week that Burberry’s UK sales dropped in the last three months of 2017 – and food doesn’t have to be. Ergo, why not give the people a slice of fashion by giving them a slice of something they can afford: cake?
You might not be able to stretch to the Burberry Kensington mid-length trench (£1,295), but you could probably afford the Burberry fish pie (£18), or Burberry cheese straws (£8). Burberry is Burberry, and for those who want a touch of luxury, it fulfils a craving for glamour while also filling the stomach.
In the same way most of us do not expect to have one job for life any more, businesses don’t expect to be able to make enough money through one stream of sales. And it’s working.
In December, there was an hour-long queue waiting in -2C outside Thomas’s, while diners at Vivienne Westwood in Hong Kong can hang around for 90 minutes for a cup of tea. Locals like these places, too, with lunch at Burberry popular with fashionistas
from the nearby Vogue House.
While the eponymous Thomas Burberry couldn’t be there during lunch this week, having died in 1926, I like to think the fashion label’s founder would have enjoyed the lobster and chips (£50) now on offer alongside neon pink clutches (£395).
But what of the infamous fashion mantra: “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”? It is hard to imagine sylphlike supermodels such as Kaia Gerber tucking into Thomas’s toasties (£9) or hot buttered crumpets (£5). I imagine the tiny dish of Burberry vegetables (£7) might be more up their street, but the waitress assures me the models who dine here prefer the honey-glazed sausages (although she’s not sure how many they actually eat).
Undoubtedly, eating here – perhaps eating, full-stop – is at least partly for show; many do so in head-to-toe Burberry, I’m told. But there’s also something undeniably fun about the spa-like feel, so removed from the chaos of Regent Street outside. I might even come back for the crumpets. In my Burberry trench. You’ll be able to find proof on Instagram.