NYC restaurants bring back the dress code

THE NYC RESTAURANT SCENE CHIC IS BACK

(DRESS CODE STRICTLY ENFORCED)

HIGH SOCIETY

LEAVE THE SWEATSHIRT AT HOME. DINING DRESS CODES ARE BACK.

ANUMBER OF RESTAURANTS ARE BETTING THAT AMERICANS WANT TO GET GUSSIED UP AGAIN, BUT NOT EVERYONE IS THRILLED ABOUT THE FASHION SCREENING.

One unusually warm evening in the West Village, while other New Yorkers were outside walking their dogs in sneakers and T-shirts, a family of five sat primly in the front window of a formal dining room, each of them garbed in a stylish blazer. A couple in a velvet corner booth wore suits — his navy, hers powder blue. Pearls gleamed, freshly buffed shoes glowed. When a fashionably dressed couple stopped in momentarily for a peek at the menu, the sight was jarring: They were wearing jeans.

That everyone was in full feather at this restaurant, Les Trois Chevaux, was no coincidence. They had been instructed to do so the previous day in a text message that read like a manifesto.

“At Les Trois Chevaux, we revere the style and finesse that can only be attributed to having New York swagger,” it said. “We expect our guests to arrive in proper dinner attire, and for you to celebrate the style that downtown New York City can bring.” Lest there be any confusion, details followed: “Blue jeans, shorts and sneakers are strictly prohibited.” Diners were “kindly” requested to wear jackets. For those without a jacket, a vintage Yves Saint Laurent model would be provided. Anything else? “Absolutely no flip-flops,” the chef and owner, Angie Mar, emphasized in an interview.

“Something that I feel tremendously is missing from New York over the past five or six years is that old-school flair that I love,” she said. “It is important that we bring that back.”

During a pandemic in which many Americans have traded their tailored slacks for leisure wear, dress codes are

making an unexpected return to the dining room.

Over the last two years, several new restaurants around the country have opened with policies on expected attire, some stern (“upscale fashionable dress code strongly enforced,” warns a text from Olivetta in Los Angeles) and some vague (“smart casual or better,” advises Catbird in Dallas).

Some are aspirational: “We expect our guests to bring their best,” says Kitchen + Kocktails in Chicago. Others seem to allude to some disturbing prior incident: “Clothing emitting offensive odors is not permitted” at Juliet in Houston.

Whatever the particulars, the calculation is the same — a belief that many diners are eager to dress up again after an epoch of record-level dowdiness.

“Everywhere we went, people were walking around in sweatpants and T-shirts and their hair was not done,” said Rosea Grady, the general manager at Thirteen, a high-end Houston restaurant founded by the professional basketball player James Harden that opened in March 2021. “We wanted Thirteen to be a place where people put their best on.”

A dress code also complements the luxe surroundings, she added. “The building is beautiful. Our wallpaper is from Gucci.”

If all this sounds a bit exclusionary, in some places it’s meant to be. “My restaurants are not for everybody in terms of taste,” said Ms. Mar of Les Trois Chevaux, which opened last July with a menu that runs to lavish dishes like a mille-feuille pastry stuffed with foie gras.

Dress codes may also seem counterintuitive at a time when many diners have reacted angrily to other directives — like requests to wear a face mask — and when even some formal restaurants with longstanding dress rules have loosened them during the pandemic. Eric Ripert, the chef and co-owner of Le Bernardin, in Manhattan, said he dropped a requirement that men wear jackets because sharing the restaurant’s loaner coats seemed unhygienic.

In the last few years, the restaurant business has grappled with issues of equity and inclusion, and dress codes have come under fresh criticism as a covert means of discriminating or treating customers arbitrarily. Last month, the former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms tweeted that she had been turned away from a Capital Grille in that city for wearing leggings, and wondered “if the woman who came in immediately after me, who I did not see come back out, was also denied service.” (The restaurant group said that the woman had come in for takeout, but that its president apologized to Ms. Lance Bottoms, and it had updated the dress code and retrained staff on proper enforcement.)

“Dress signifies a lot of highly contested issues: gender identity and gender roles, race, class, status,” said Richard Thompson Ford, a professor at Stanford Law School and the author of “Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History.” “When we can’t really talk about these issues openly, we struggle through proxies, like clothing.”

Some local governments have even stepped in to condemn dress codes. In the summer of 2020, the Baltimore City Council passed a resolution that called on the Atlas Restaurant Group to eliminate its dress code after a Black woman and her son, who was in athletic wear, were denied entry to Ouzo Bay, while a white child dressed similarly was already dining. (The restaurant group apologized and relaxed the code.)

Many restaurateurs point out that their dress policies are broadly worded so they won’t be perceived as racially coded or gender-specific. Some allow more informal clothing like jeans, cropped shirts and miniskirts.

“It is not stuffy,” Kim Walker said of the dress code at her Los Angeles rooftop lounge, Bar Lis. “But it cues people, like, ‘Hey, I am going to go home and get a little dolled up.’”

Plenty of diners don’t mind. Many embrace the opportunity to spruce up.

Priscilla Von Sorella, a fashion designer in Manhattan, said that dressing nicely allows her to express unspoken gratitude for restaurants.

“They have really suffered a lot in the last two years,” she said. “Whenever you enter their establishment, especially if it is a nicer establishment, it is a way to show your token of appreciation and a level of respect.”

FINE DINING DRESS CODE REQUIRED TO DINE

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OVER 100 ONLINE RETAILERS AND THOUSANDS OF MATTRESS SHOPS PROMISE A BETTER NIGHT'S SLEEP, BUT THE WORLD'S MOST EXPENSIVE MATTRESS COMES WITH A 25-YEAR ANNUAL IN-HOME SERVICE PLAN

BEFORE WE CAN TALK ABOUT BUYING A NEW MATTRESS, YOU’LL NEED A PH.D. IN CHEMISTRY AND ANOTHER IN MECHANICAL ENGINEERING.

How else to make sense of the latest concepts in mattress technology—for instance, hyper-elastic polymer, buckling column gel, phase-change molecule fabrics, ballistocardiograph sensors, ice fabric, and 3-D-matrix layers? A master’s degree in marketing and B.S. will also come in handy.

You will have plenty of time to pursue your degree in mattress studies because you no longer have to get out of bed to buy a new bed. No more lolling on a mattress in a showroom, as if you’re in a Marina Abramović installation. More than 100 online merchants will deliver a mattress to you, rolled up like a Drake’s Yodel in a box the size of a doghouse that a cocker spaniel would feel cramped in.

I could not sample every e-commerce mattress. Some companies require a customer to live with the purchase for at least a month before sending it back, and where was I supposed to store an extra mattress, let alone a dormitory’s worth of them? I did obtain, and later un-obtain, a couple of mattresses online. Who’d have thought that I, someone who spent years fastidiously fingering duvet covers to find the right softness, would be throwing caution to the wind and ordering a mattress on my computer? Welcome, mattresses, to the weird new disrupter world, where your neighbors include prescription eyeglasses, used clothes and pets.

While I waited for my mattresses to be delivered, I hit some mattress stores. Aside from variations in size and upholstery, all mattresses look alike. Are they?

Let’s start with the basic types: innerspring coil, foam, hybrid (foam and innerspring), and adjustable air. Within each category are subcategories. There seem to be more kinds of foam mattresses than there are craft beers from Brooklyn, but don’t be fooled by proprietary terms like “Ambien-injected kosher crypto-foam.” There are only two types of foam: polyurethane, of which memory foam is a subset, and latex.

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You’re just getting started making decisions, however. What level of firmness do you like? Do you sleep on your side, back, or stomach? When your bedmate tosses and turns, how much does it disturb you (on the Richter scale)? Do you want your mattress all-natural, or will a soupçon of nature do? Do any of the following materials alarm you: soy, hemp, horsehair, mohair, coconut fiber, green tea, polylactide derived from sugarcane? Are you for or against heat-conductive copper flecks? Is the amount of “edge support” that your mattress provides a matter of life and death? How much extra are you willing to pay for latex foam that is flash-frozen before it is baked, or will mere baking suffice?

“Which mattress should I get?” I asked Alex, a Saatva “sleep guide” who works in the company’s New York showroom. “It depends on your palate,” he

GETTING A BETTER NIGHT'S SLEEP

said, like a waiter who’d been asked whether he recommends the chicken piccata or the trout amandine. Saatva is an e-commerce company, the parent of Loom & Leaf and Zenhaven, two other big names in direct-to-consumer bedding. Merchandise in the showroom is available for experiencing but not for purchasing. The lighting is subdued, the color scheme neutral; here and there, beige artificial trees are not growing. I surveyed the 13 beds positioned throughout the space. Of the mattresses you can buy online, Saatva was named by Good Housekeeping “Best Overall.” ($1,695. Note: All prices here are for a queen, which is what 47 percent of Americans sleep on.)

Dobrin Mitev, the former head of affiliate and strategic partnerships for Casper, advised me to beware of ratings. He left his job last year because, he said, “I could no longer get behind the mattress industry.” Third-party review sites, he said, generally earn commissions based on how many consumer purchases are made through their links. At Casper, he said, “I was in charge of giving out a pretty penny to affiliates.” This might be why every mattress seems to have received an award for something, even if it’s Canadian Mattress That Tries Hardest or Best Mattress to Have Insomnia On.

Back at Saatva, I’m sprawled on the Classic, the brand’s signature model. It is composed of two layers of innerspring—the bottom is a system of interconnected coils that provide support, and the top has individually encased coils that contour to your body. Above the coils is a thin slab of memory foam, for “enhanced lower-back support and durability.” Covering it all, like icing on a cake, is a marshmallow-y top of cotton quilting.

Have you ever lain awake at night, thinking, Well, I suppose I must chop off my arm now, because there is nowhere to put it if I remain on my side? If the answer is yes, your mattress is too firm, a common buying mistake. The mattress best suited to you is the one that keeps your spine in its natural S curve and relieves pressure points (shoulder and hips) by allowing you to sink into the surface just the right amount. In general, firmer mattresses are better for back and stomach sleepers and for people weighing more than two hundred and thirty pounds; softer mattresses are recommended for side sleepers and hummingbirds.

Memory foam is the biggest thing in bedding. It was invented in 1966, by Charles Yost, an engineer who’d been

contracted by NASA to come up with a material to cushion astronauts’ seats during lift-off and mitigate the stress caused by G-force. Memory foam is polyurethane foam. This means that it is slower to change shape under pressure, yet quicker to spring back to its original shape. It should really be called short-term-memory foam. When warmed by your body, it conforms to your contours, giving you a sense of being hugged. Some people feel trapped. Some people like feeling trapped. Because of memory foam’s high density, it absorbs movement, reducing the chance that when your partner rolls over a ripple will be detectable on your side of the bed.

Memory foam’s density also means that it tends to feel hotter than a spring mattress, which is airier. To compensate, memory foam is sometimes infused with gel, in capsules or swirls. Does that work? Not really, according to Michael Hickner, a professor of materials science and engineering at Penn State. “I think a lot of it is marketing and small design tweaks,” he told me. But the main problem he has with foam mattresses is that they do not bio-degrade.

The type of foam the planet is rooting for you to buy is natural latex. Made from liquid extruded from rubber trees, it’s whipped until frothy and then baked. The resulting material can be both biodegradable and recyclable. No trees are harmed in the process; for them, it’s like giving blood. Latex is denser and heavier than urethane foam, in addition to being more durable, and often cooler. It has more air flow because of small perforations, which resemble the peg holes of a cribbage board. Latex foam is more expensive. It is also bouncier, which puts it on many Best Mattresses for Sex lists.

As with finding a person to sleep with, choosing what you want to sleep on is now largely done online. This was made possible because foam mattresses, unlike the old-fashioned battleships of steel and batting, can be compressed, jammed into a box, and delivered by UPS to your bedroom. Even hybrid mattresses—foam plus micro-coils—are squishable and shippable. (Saatva is unusual in that it hand-delivers your purchase unfurled.)

The first of the new mattress disrupters, a Tennessee startup called BedInABox, appeared in 2006. The C.E.O. and founder, Bill Bradley, had been inspired by Magniflex, an Italian bed-maker that, since 1986, had been offering compressed, vacuum-sealed mattresses stuffed into duffel bags. Like Popsicle, Taser, and Zoom, the brand name BedInABox became synonymous with the category of product. But the hegemony of traditional retailers with a physical presence wasn’t threatened until Casper arrived in 2014, with just one mattress style, and launched a social-media campaign that made tugging a foam rectangle out of a box look like the most fun anyone could ever have.

In 2010, by some accounts, less than one percent of mattress purchases in the United States were online; in 2018, the slice was 45 percent; and since the start of the pandemic it’s certainly grown even larger. Virtual buying has a lot to recommend it: the mattresses are generally cheaper, owing to lower operating costs and more competition; there’s a lot more product to choose from; and the return policies tend to be more generous.

But can you reliably pick the right mattress sight unseen? Not automatically. However, if you try out some models in an actual store or two, you should do fine.

I asked one mattress-store employee what makes it so special. “I can’t tell you,” he said. “It’s a trade secret.” Manufacturers often boast of a “proprietary formula,” which could be as meaningful as adding a dash of salt.

Dobrin Mitev believes that price does reflect quality. “At least at Casper, the more expensive models had a more complex structure,” he said. “More layers, and each layer had a different function.” Comparing mattresses to wine, he recommended selecting from the middle price range. “You don’t want to buy the cheapest,” he said, but in the mid-range, “There is not that much difference.”

Did I mention that it’s almost impossible to buy a mattress that is not on sale? March through May is the best time to buy, according to Bob Vila’s Web site, because new product usually arrives in June. But everything is negotiable. Chris Regan, who manages the mattress-testing program at Consumer Reports, estimated that mattresses have a markup of 40 to 50 per cent. Haggling usually works, unless you are dealing with a company with fixed prices, such as a warehouse club.

At Hästens, if you have to ask, you can’t afford it. The company’s most preposterously priced mattress, a king-size Grande Vivius, costs $539,000 (bed frame included). When Drake bought one, in 2020, it was merely $400,000. For non-Grammy winners, there’s a waiting list. Handcrafted by a team of artisans in Sweden, each mattress takes up to 600 hours to assemble and stitch and is wrapped in checked cotton ticking. If you buy one, even the company’s humblest ($19,575), a pair of “sleep doctors” will come to your house twice a year for 25 years to flip, rotate, and massage your mattress.

No, these mattresses are not stuffed with caviar or antimatter or $539,000 dollars in unmarked bills. In addition to steel (for the springs), wool, cotton, and flax, they are made from more than a dozen layers of hand-teased South American horsetail hair. Horsehair fibers are hollow, a Hästens executive explained, which means that they enhance the mattress’s ventilation system. (Horses sleep standing up; make of that what you will.) Although the mattresses have a warranty of 25 years, the executive clarified, “We won’t replace it if your dog rips it apart.”

whom I share an old but good-enoughfor-now mattress, I tried out a few Hästens models during a private sleep consultation. This was arranged by a Hästens employee, Kristel Kalm (real name), a lanky former tennis pro from Sweden. She’d offered to send a car for us, but we made the three-block journey on foot. In borrowed goose-down Hästens booties ($200), we chilled on a king-size 2000T mattress ($61,780). The lights were dim and candles burned, mimicking the ambiance of a séance or a facial. I wish I could tell you that Hästens mattresses are uncomfortable, because then you wouldn’t even think of spending the equivalent of a year’s college tuition on a bed. But they are extremely comfortable, somehow simultaneously dense and pliant. Oh, well, sleep is as good as college for your brain.

In truth, the more mattresses I slept on, the more I couldn’t tell them apart. The Avocado innerspring and latex, topped with wool sheared from Himalayan Gaddi goats that, according to the brand’s Web site, “Graze on organic pastures [where] a frigid mountain stream runs downhill and peaks over 20,000 feet loom high above,” was also great ($2,299). So was the DUX 6006, which has as many as 4,200 interconnected coils and a removable top pad for extra cushioning, if that’s your thing ($10,430). Ditto the Sleep Number 360 p6 Smart Bed, which contains two airfilled bladders, so that the inflation and deflation of each side can be adjusted on their own, to accommodate the preferences of you and your bedmate ($3,099). And, for anyone who needs biometrics regarding each second of her slumber, the SleepIQ Technology found in every Sleep Number mattress is designed for you. The Casper Nova Hybrid ($2,295) is awfully cozy, and I also like the Casper Original, both the all-foam ($1,295) and the hybrid foam with springs ($1,695).

Staring at the ceiling in Bloomingdale’s, listening to the Four Seasons sing “Oh, what a night” over the sound system, I wanted to answer “Both” to the salesperson’s question: Which is more comfortable? Some of this confusion is deliberate. Jerry Epperson, an investment banker who specializes in the furniture and mattress fields, told me, “We’re an industry where five companies do 60 to 70 percent of the manufacturing.” He named them: Tempur-Pedic, Sealy, Serta, Simmons and Sleep Number. A manufacturer often sells the same product to various retailers. The retailer then slaps on a proprietary name, deeming the mattress an exclusive. Mattress people call this practice “the name game.”

Amid all the shadiness and hyped marketing, how to choose? Whether you buy online or in person, sample enough mattresses to figure out whether you prefer memory foam, latex, innerspring, adjustable air-filled, or some combination. Don’t buy any mattress that doesn’t come with a trial period. Keep the mattress pristine during this time. Read the fine print on the return policy to avoid surprises. Some policies allow only exchanges. That’s not for you. You know that mattress tag? Removing it can void the warranty.

THE TWO-MONTH LONG FESTIVAL YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF JEDDAH SEASON

DESIGNED TO ATTRACT THE HIP, JET-SET CROWD

SAUDI ARABIA HAS BECOME A TRAVEL HOT SPOT IN RECENT YEARS AS GLOBETROTTERS CONTINUE TO SEEK OUT AUTHENTIC EXPERIENCES THAT ARE IMPOSSIBLE TO REPLICATE ELSEWHERE—LIKE JEDDAH SEASON.

This two-month-long festival, running from May to June, is the epitome of Saudi opulence and Arabian culture, with over 2,800 exciting events ranging from entertainment to sports to culture and food.

For many world travelers, Jeddah Season is the stuff that dreams are made of; a two-in-one opportunity to participate in a massive, global event while also discovering one of the most promising travel destinations in the Middle East. With a vast topography, diverse culture, and an amazing line-up of world-class events every year, Saudi has swiftly established itself as a bucket-list-worthy destination, and now’s the perfect time to experience the Kingdom for yourself.

One of the best things about traveling to Saudi is timing your trip to line up

with one of the exhilarating, luxurious events that take place several times throughout the year, upping the ante of the standard visit. Many travelers choose to visit Saudi during May and June for this very reason. Jeddah Season, which has already attracted 2 million visitors from across the globe in less than a month since it’s been running, is enough to have visitors booking flights. What makes this event so special is its winning combination of variety and authenticity. In short, Jeddah Season has every type of entertainment a traveler could ask for with a uniquely Arabian flair. WORLD-CLASS ENTERTAINMENT

No matter what your taste, Jeddah Season has a show, game, or venue to suit your sensibilities. For the music-obsessed, Jeddah season offers a diverse mix of performances across several stages—everything from stellar soprano performances by Magda El Roumi to energetic K-Pop performances to lively performances by a trio of well-known Egyptian rap stars, among many others. Nightly theater shows offer a chance to delve into the deeper side of the arts, while a performance by Cirque du Soleil Fuzion, tailored exclusively for Jeddah Season 2022, offers mind-blowing acrobatics.

Thrill-seekers have plenty of options to get the adrenaline pumping during Jeddah Season, too. Exhilarating games and sporting events take place throughout the event alongside several interactive sporting opportunities, like paddle boarding and jet ski riding at Jeddah Waves. If that isn’t enough to satiate your appetite, then try to escape a “zombie invasion” at City Walk. You can also get

out there to experience the breathtaking marine life of the Red Sea at Jeddah Yacht Club’s scuba diving trip, or take a private jeep tour at Jeddah Jungle.

CULTURE AND CUISINE

Navigate through ancient doors and take Instagram-worthy photographs at the UNESCO-listed Heritage Site of Al Balad, also known as “Historic Jeddah”, which is undoubtedly the oldest and probably the most interesting place to visit in the city. From there, you can sit in a café while enjoying authentic Arabian music, or sample a handful of delectable local dishes. If you stick around long enough and get to know the restaurant owners, you might even have the chance to learn their secret recipes to take home with you.

Speaking of food, Jeddah is a haven for culinary enthusiasts from around the world offering authentic cuisine that is distinct to the Kingdom. Explore the city to get your hands on a wide variety of Arabian food at City Walk’s Petite Café, or get a taste of exquisite Mediterranean flavors at Obo. If you’re looking for something more high-end, venture to Jeddah Yacht Club’s Karamma for a perfect mix of modern cuisine with Arabian ambiance, City Walk’s Kabana, on the other hand, offers an elegantly decorated Afghan cuisine with a contemporary twist. The most difficult part of your trip might be choosing from all of the incredible restaurant options—or you can simply try to sample them all.

We wouldn’t blame you.

SAUDI ARABIA'S JEDDAH SEASON

HIGH SOCIETY

SKY HIGH

CENTRAL PARK TOWER'S PRIVATE CLUB SOARS 1,000 FEET ABOVE NYC

CENTRAL PARK TOWER IS ALREADY BREAKING RECORDS. STANDING AT 1,550 FEET TALL, WITH 131 FLOORS, THE SKYSCRAPER IS THE TALLEST RESIDENTIAL BUILDING IN THE WORLD. BUT THAT’S NOT THE STRUCTURE’S ONLY CLAIM TO FAME: IT’S ALSO THE HOME OF THE WORLD’S HIGHEST PRIVATE CLUB.

Spanning three floors in Central Park Tower, Central Park Club boasts 50,000 square feet of lavish amenities, including a residential lounge, screening room, 60-footlong outdoor swimming pool, private park, and fine dining options.

Designed by Rottet Studio, the peak of the private club is the 100th floor, where members can find a grand ballroom, a private bar and restaurant with menus from Michelin-star chefs, and a wine and cigar lounge. All of these amenities are made that much more luxurious by the 360-degree views of Central Park, both the Hudson and East River, and the Manhattan skyline.

“When a view is as stunning as this, the interior design needs to introduce you to the view, not overpower the view,” Lauren Rottet of Rottet Studio said. “Though the interiors are far from minimal, they are also not over-cluttered or decorated.”

The interiors of the 100th floor are fluid, though cohesive. In the lounge, pearl- and sapphire-toned structured furniture is met with polished finishes from coffee tables, consoles, and a grand piano. Gold accents round out the space, evoking a modern Parisian aesthetic.

Similar motifs return in the bar area, though this time to create a moodier noir theme. Indulging in Art Deco opulence, black and gold interiors define the darker space, while satin-like materiality from the bar and a geometric ceiling provide subtle continuity from the lounge. “We wanted to create an environment of classic, timeless luxury, where each room had its own unique feel but was part of the greater whole,” Rottet added.

“Central Park Tower’s 100th floor is unlike anything else in the world,” said Gary Barnett, founder and chairman of Extell Development Company, the firm that developed Central Park Tower. To further enhance the one-of-a-kind experience, the luxury skyscraper partnered with Colin Cowie, a lifestyle advisor and author, who will act as the building’s exclusive lifestyle curator and event planner. Cowie took a five-sense approach when crafting the mood inside the club, including designing formulated ambiance changes, including lights that adapt as the sun sets, music that increases in tempo as the day matures, and a rotation of custom seasonal scents.