Regrets, I have a nude
Eating where the food is as unadorned as the clientele
Normally the most amiable man on earth, my boyfriend just kicked a fake prehistoric tree stump in a fit of what may be termed “hipster rage.” A chap with a beard has just insisted he remove his trousers, be stripped of all writing implements and surrender his phone. It is hot — swelteringly, broilingly hot — and we are surrounded by tiny bamboo booths. It feels like a high school recreation of the Japanese internment camp television drama, Tenko.
Usually, I would relish the swank appeal of being first into a restaurant with a waiting list of 46,000 people, even if said restaurant did claim to be run by a “creative collective.” However, The Bunyadi is London’s first — and one assumes last — nudist restaurant and I am rapidly coming to regret my decision to make it the venue for my latest hot date.
According to its website, The Bunyadi — pronounced Bon- YA- dee and said to mean “fundamental, base, natural” in a language as yet unrevealed — is London’s “natural,” “naked,” “unclad” and “purest” restaurant. It invites diners to: “Enter a secret Pangea- like world, free from phones, electric lights and even clothing (optional) and revisit the beginning where everything was fresh, free and unadulterated from the trappings of modern life.” As a necessary concession to modern life, gowns and lockers will be provided.
Pangea was the supercontinent that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras, when the Earth’s land mass had yet to split into separate continents. So “free from the trappings of human life” was it that humans had yet to make an appearance. Still, let’s not let that get in the way of a hipster marketing concept. In this context, the term should be taken to mean uncooked, vegan fare, with the odd slab of raw meat to sate the unreconstructed.
The Bunyadi is a threemonth summer pop-up that can hold 42 diners, although there are plans for it to take permanent shape, possibly in France (no surprises there).
Dinner can be had for 60 pounds a head, served by “minimally clothed” waiting staff. Tables are divided by bamboo screens, creating some semblance of privacy; food is served on handmade clay crockery; soup is blended with a machine generated by bicycle power.
Still, if there is a rumbling in the zeitgeist, then, obviously, I want in on it. Ahead of our meal, I note with relief that I don’t have to worry about what I’m wearing, given that it will be kit-off. Although I do rather wish I had undertaken some sort of exercise regime in the last few weeks. As for grooming, I feel this is a matter best left to the imagination. Suffice to say, the thought does occur.
After some furtive to- ing and fro-ing about The Bunyadi’s secret, south London location (only revealed once you have a ticket, and then you are sworn to secrecy), a kindly bouncer gives us the thumbs- up and we slip into the sweaty under-gloom. I’m feeling a tad anxious, after a series of nightmares about being at work naked. Given how many journalists are here in the darkened bar-cum-waiting area, this is exactly the situation I now find myself in.
Sebastian Lyall, founder of Lollipop, the aforementioned creative collective behind the restaurant, is curiously rude and officious for a man with a 46,000-strong waiting list. He clearly does not hail from these parts, but will not tell me where he’s from, as he is “against nationalities.” Keen as he is to promote “naked, tasty food” and “taking people away from technology,” he appreciates that nudity is the aspect that will intrigue punters most.
So why, Global Seb? “People are objectified,” he explains, “stereotyped as sexual objects, women more than men. We are told how we should look before we go to a beach, or to do this and that. It’s clear this is something people don’t want, but it’s embedded in our culture so much that we can’t run away from it. It leads to psychological problems — the more you sexualize bodies, it will lead to crimes. The restaurant de-sexualizes bodies, which are beautiful whatever shape they are, as you are in a space where it doesn’t matter how you look.”
(This, one notes, will not be the case in Japan’s first naked restaurant, which is reportedly imposing a ban on the overweight, the tattooed and the elderly. However, here matters are more inclusive.)
Lyall continues: “You won’t look at bodies the same way after you’ve been to this restaurant. It’s not a naked party. Most applicants are women, most people who tweet us with excitement are women.”
It is safe to say that I am a woman who is less excited than wondering about fate of her relationship, following the faux stump kicking incident. However, as we don our robes, my boyfriend appears increasingly intrigued by the prospect, inquiring: “It’s not a sex thing, is it? Vegans are really into sex. It’s all they’ve got.” Then he launches into a series of Alan Partridge-esque gags about the meat not being on, but under the table.
The restaurant itself looks like a cramped version of the Rainforest Cafe, an un- Pangean type of jazz plays as topless nymphs and loin-clothed waiters and waitresses swan about in plastic fig leaves. Said nymphs and youths are utterly charming, and genuinely enthused about the chopped vegetables they present us with, but it still feels a bit Palaeolithic am-dram.
Curiously, for a man so profoundly Etonian that he averts his eyes merely when I’m in my La Perla underpinnings, my boyfriend assumes a robust line on the matter of robe-shedding — possibly because it is so hot that both of us feel lightheaded. Indeed, he becomes rather amorous, loyally informing me that I have the “best breasts” in the place, which he can say with authority because “everybody else’s are at eye level.” However, his worry about splinters in his wedding tackle feels worryingly well-founded.
Conversation in other booths sounds stilted, not least as diners have been forced together on group tables. There are a lot of Englishisms about the weather and observations about the crockery. There is a not-so-faint odour of BO, but presumably this is considered Pangean.
After 90 minutes of chomping and sweating, we emerge into the blinding late afternoon light feeling faint and startled. Eyeing the Chicken Cottage across the street, my boyfriend sighs: “Can we just go and eat?”