They’re not dressing to impress.
New Yorkers spend weeks to score reservations at trendy restaurants — calling in favors, jumping through online hoops and setting alarms — but then can’t be bothered to look the part when they actually go to these places.
In recent months, I’ve been aghast to see men in jogging pants and hoodies at Crane Club, hats at Chez Fifi and storm jackets sloppily draped over chair backs at Armani Ristorante.
The city’s fine dining restaurants, once havens of gentility, have become ghastly runways for cargo pants, baseball hats, sneakers and untucked t-shirts. Jackets and ties have nearly gone extinct.
Fearful of losing customers, restaurants no longer enforce dress codes like they did before the pandemic.
“We don’t want to turn anyone away,” Sebastien Silvestri, CEO of Daniel Boulud’s Dinex group, told The Post.
David Foulquier, the co-owner of Chez Fifi on the Upper East Side, echoes the sentiment.
“It’s a thin line between being exclusive and classic and being inclusive to make everyone feel welcome,” he told The Post.
Although offices are filling up again, fewer men wear suits or ties to work than they did pre-pandemic. It means they’ll go from work to dining out without the formality that once defined the scene.
Even three-Michelin-star Le Bernardin quietly dropped its “jackets required” rule to a mere “jackets recommended” in mid-2021.
Angie Mar’s short-lived Les Trois Cheveaux in the Village was one of the few remaining places in the city requiring jackets for men. It closed in 2023 after barely two years. Mar replaced it with Le B. It has no dress requirement other than a “request” not to wear “athletic wear and baseball caps.”
But the schlubby have no shame when it comes to where they’ll don athletic wear.
Lynn Surry, the president of the Al Hirschfeld Foundation, recalls being horrified by fellow diners at Daniel Boulud’s elegant Le Pavillon, where the three-course prix-fixe dinner menu starts at $145.
“There were people in hiking boots, cargo shorts and with butt cracks showing,” she lamented. But “management was wonderful when I reported it,” she said, and they’ve since banned athletic or leisure wear for everyone and shorts or sandals for men.
Restaurant managers do what they can to manage unfashionable diners without turning anyone away.
“We either gently sit [the under-dressed] outside or in the back area behind the bar, but in a nice way,” La Goulue general manager Mohamed Daoud said. “I don’t want somebody poorly dressed in the front, it isn’t what our regulars want to see.”
Daoud perfected the drill at Harry Cipriani on Fifth Avenue where he once worked. At La Goulue, it happens so smoothly and politely, few customers even notice.
“We’ll say, ‘We have a nice corner or a nice banquette for you,’” he said. “We can’t offend anyone.”
At Marea, the great Italian restaurant on Central Park South, it’s long struck me that diners at tables against a rear wall behind the buzzing bar were the least sartorially correct in the house. Is it a slob Siberia?
When asked, maitre ‘d Ivan Matteoni diplomatically suggested they were people without reservations.
“We don’t reject guests,” he said. “For walk-ins, we find tables for them that won’t upset other guests. You try to make everyone comfortable.”
Matteoni noted that every seating decision is a judgment call.
“What if someone comes in with sweatpants, but they’re thousand-dollar sweatpants? Or we might have a [show business or literary agent] all dressed up with a client in a hat.”
Chez Fifi’s Foulquier admitted that he’s been guilty of under-dressing at times.
He related a years-ago incident at Le Bilboquet, a favorite bistro of mine that’s known for attractively dressed clientele.
He and a girlfriend were seated next to owner Phillipe Delgrange, a longtime friend.
“I was wearing like ‘business athletic’ — stretchy pants for the office and sneakers,” Foulquier recalled. “Philippe said, ‘What are you doing, wearing those at Bilboquet? Your mom would have slapped you.’ ”
(His late mother was always stylish, and Chez Fifi is named after her.)
At Bilboquet, I typically see a shopping spree of Yves St. Laurent and Prada in the see-and-be-seen front room — but much less sartorial splendor in the back room.
Urbane manager Gregory Fellous cheerfully denied separating patrons by their attire but said his “very subtle” job is to seat guests “harmoniously throughout” and having “the same energy across the floor.”
And, he noted that “athletic wear, flip-flops and swim suits” are not welcome anywhere in the restaurant.
Next time I go, I’ll be sure to leave my Vilebrequin trunks behind.
