London has a new restaurant serving raw, or "naked" food, and its customers are asked to dress accordingly.
Self-study activity:
Watch the video and answer the questions below.
1 What do customers have at the bar?
2 What are they given in the changing rooms?
3 What restrictions does the dining area have?
4 What did the restaurant open?
5 Apart from being a restaurant, what is Bunyadi?
We are in South London, at a pop-up restaurant called Bunyadi. But unlike most restaurants, this restaurant doesn’t require you to wear any clothes. Let’s see.
Hello, I’m Ignacio, the architect, the manager of the Bunyadi, London, a restaurant where everything is naked. When customers come in, they are welcome to this bar. Some of them travel all around the world to come here and they don’t know what to expect. They have one drink or two, and then they are taken to the changing room, where we give them gowns and slippers. After they get changed, we take them to the dining area, where no phone or any electrical devices are allowed. They are taken to the tables and then they can enjoy and experience the amazing food.
It’s about enjoying nakedness when it comes to bodies, food, nakedness from technology, basically a space where you are free from the modern trappings of the world.
We launched it a couple of weeks ago. We have, are now a waiting list of 4 to 5 thousand people. One of the biggest reasons why we started Bunyadi was naked food, our food is sauce to plate, raw without any preservatives, colour. I think the second reason is liberation from technology while you’re eating. I think we all get annoyed when the phones come out during dinner. So when you go to the toilet, if you’re with someone and you come back, the other person is waiting for you to finish the conversation and not literally on their phones.
Perhaps the most important thing is giving these people the space where they’ll be comfortable. I think, I think it’s not only about a restaurant. It’s a social experiment. There is a big problem all over the world with objectification and sexualisation of bodies, and I think people need to think of ideas which will help to desexualise this aspect of… this very physical aspect of human, humans which everyone has.
So I think you bring all these things together and you’ve got a recipe of a space where people feel comfortable being naked and not judged.
Key:
1 one drink or two
2 a gown and slippers
3 no phone or any electrical devices are allowed
4 two weeks ago
5 a social experiment
