You’re Not The Only One on Resy: Why Every Fashion Brand Suddenly Wants a Table in New York

On an upper floor of Bergdorf Goodman, there is a historical artifact: the department store restaurant. Art Deco details, like gilded accents on crown molding and chrome-rimmed bar stools, are reminiscent of the glamorous aesthetics found throughout this New York City landmark. These features recall a bygone era of decadent department stores, where visitors would often spend the day indulging in beauty treatments, shopping and dining. Today, fashion brands have replaced the curated department store as the destination of dreams and desires – and that increasingly includes dining venues. But what does it reveal about the future of the fashion industry? And can brands succeed in their fashion meets food ventures in one of the world’s dining capitals?

Evidently, they have taken the leap. Le Café Louis Vuitton entered the scene last November with guests sharing their logo-embossed confections across socials. One month later, Armani opened Armani Ristorante, a sleek, upscale Italian addition to the Upper East Side. In March, Printemps New York launched and introduced five culinary concepts within the Financial District. Undeniably, fashion has ventured into New York’s culinary world. But a little curiosity reveals that these fields have embraced each other for centuries.

A Century-Long Affair

“We've always seen these as industries, on a luxury level, be intertwined,” says Dr. Elizabeth Way, a curator at the Museum at FIT. In the fall of 2023, the Museum at FIT presented the exhibit Food & Fashion, curated by Way and Melissa Marra-Alvarez. The exhibition featured recognizable food references through fashion, including a McDonalds-inspired ensemble from Moschino and produce-printed dresses from Cynthia Rowley. “One of the things that I really came to understand through Food & Fashion is the ways in which these two aspects of our lives overlap because they are so universal, and they are so prevalent in our everyday lives,” says Way.

In the late 18th century France, food, like fashion, was seen as a “form of power and cultural authority,” Way says, evidenced through particular delicacies and exotic foods. In the later part of the 20th century, she says, “we start to see fashion designers expand their aesthetics into more of a lifestyle.” This included multiple designer cookbooks, like the posthumous publishing of Christian Dior’s recipes in 1972 and the Missoni Family Cookbook in 2018. In March, Peter Som – who has dressed Michelle Obama and Beyonce – published a cookbook.

Prada Caffè, London’s take on the Food x Fashion Craze

Yet it’s one thing for a designer to publish a cookbook. It’s another for a fashion personality to open a restaurant. In 1994, supermodels Naomi Campbell, Claudia Schiffer and Elle MacPherson opened the Fashion Cafe at Rockefeller Plaza. Ruth Reichl, the food critic for The New York Times, wrote in her lackluster review that “the food I ate was surprisingly decent.” Matt Haig, in his book Brand Failures from 2003, included Fashion Cafe as one of the “100 biggest branding mistakes of all time” and wrote that “‘fashion’ was not a theme that made people feel hungry.”

But for today’s brands, an eatery is a way of world building and converting a greater number of dreamers into customers. “You can go to the Prada Café and get a $6 coffee where you maybe can’t afford a handbag or a dress,” Way says. “It’s this idea of making the ethos and aesthetics of the brand an experience and reaching new customers through these different price levels.” Through hospitality, brands can gain more of a foothold into the worlds of clients—or would be clients.

“It’s quite an experience when you go to a restaurant that really showcases the brand,” Way reflects. “…You really step into a world that the designer is creating.”

The Table as a Stage for Fashion

The recent wave of fashion eateries started with Polo Lounge, which opened in 2015. Tiffany Blue Box followed in 2017. Kerry Diamond, the host of the Radio Cherry Bombe podcast, says on her show about Polo Bar, “the team essentially took a basement space with no windows in a neighborhood that used to be a restaurant wasteland and turned it into a hit. A huge hit.”

Polo Bar succeeds in transferring Ralph Lauren’s particular Americana style into a dining venue. Its bar, with wood-paneled walls, herringbone inlay floors and tartan print pillows, captures the brand’s luxe cabin aesthetic. Like the Madison Avenue flagship, where lifestyle props are used as evocative decor, polo helmets, polo mallets and horse bridles are displayed along a signature hunter green wall. This design extends into the dining room with equestrian-themed artwork, and the menu delivers this through classic American fare. Steaks and burgers form their own category on the menu, and popular dishes include the “Polo Bar burger” with fries, the filet mignon with onion rings and the lobster roll. Apart from sides, menu items range from $18 for pigs in a blanket to $140 for caviar and potatoes.

Like many luxury experiences, Polo Bar is not easily accessible. Reservations cannot be secured online, and “smart and elegant attire” is enforced as a dress code. For some, this exclusivity contributes to brand appeal.

Fashion Food for the Masses

Meanwhile, Muji Food Market opened in January, where their retail stores’ meticulous organization extends to the design of their dining counter nestled in Chelsea Market. Like the stores, there are earthy tones found through restaurant décor. The menu features mostly Japanese snacks that can comprise a full meal, like handmade onigiri, tamago egg sandwiches and miso soup. The Japanese beef curry that I ordered was flavorful, but this particular market has stiff competition with mainstays like Amy’s Bread and Friedman’s—along with popular destinations like Los Tacos N°1 and Lobster Place attracting consistent crowds. Muji menu items range from $5 for a matcha muffin to $20 for a salmon bento bowl.

Members Only, the iconic 70’s jacket brand, is renovating a West Village storefront with a restaurant opening soon. The brand’s clothing evokes nostalgia for a bygone era, and likewise, the menu will offer throwbacks to cherished bar snacks with a modern twist. Truffle grilled cheese, chicken parm dumplings and Philly cheesesteak sliders are some of their “fashion bites.” Continuing to lean into this nostalgia, they will offer modern updates of cocktails like cosmopolitans, screwdrivers and Long Island iced teas.

Caviar, Champagne, and the Death of the Department Store

When Laura Lendrum, the CEO of Printemps America, is asked about the similarities between food and fashion on the Radio Cherry Bombe podcast, she shares, “I think that the marriage is a very good one.” Despite multiple spaces devoted to restaurants within Printemps, apart from Maison Passerelle, most of their menus are drink heavy. The Champagne Bar centers around its celebratory namesake. The Red Room Bar offers about a dozen snack-like items, and outside of beverages, Salon Vert provides a menu devoted mostly to shellfish. Maison Passerelle is beautiful, but it feels too buttoned-up. The maximalist design competes for attention with the thoughtful and bold flavors of the menu by James Beard award-winning chef Gregory Gourdet. Outside of caviar service and side dishes, menu items span from $14 for Warm Plantain Bread & Butter to $150 for Coffee Rub Steak Frites.

Printemps’ desire to stand apart from stale affiliations with department stores is reflected through its motto: “not a department store.” Undoubtedly, it is a department store. But they’re on to something – for many diners, it’s about the vibes. And brands seem set on curating an entire world (as we’ve also witnessed with recent magazines from Loewe and Chanel). Reaching beyond merchandising and advertisements—and dreaming their worlds into being—they fuel buyer inspiration that can become lucrative beyond the hanger. By targeting our plates, they get to enter more of our personal worlds and attempt to hedge against potential downturns in their financial futures.

Chefs Christophe Bellanca and Mary George of Le Café Louis Vuitton

As of yet, none of these fashion-related restaurants are Michelin starred or featured on Eater’s heatmap. From my experiences, Printemps is not best suited for foodies. But maybe my culinary expectations can be set aside as I recognize the other ways these concepts indulge the senses. Café Jalu welcomes with its plush, sidewinding banquet and invigorates through its verdant green canopied ceiling. Salon Vert is tucked away enough to provide comfort— but satiated my viewing pleasure through an exposed portion of luxury retail. And I found Red Room Bar by descending a swirling staircase of pink quartz arriving to an upbeat and rouge-accented lounge. For their target audience, it seems the feel is the priority. After all, within many of these fashion restaurants, New Yorkers have a way to engage with a brand’s lifestyle that they might not have access to otherwise. And the boundaries between fashion and hospitality are dissolving.

In Ruth Riechl’s final piece as The New York Times food critic in 1999, she wrote, “New Yorkers possess the two essential elements required to create a great restaurant town: curiosity and criticism.” She mentions that “the people who go out to eat in New York are demanding diners.” The culinary bar is set high and aesthetic expectations are prevalent. Ultimately, when choosing to dine at a famed brand’s destination, diners may have to decide what to prioritize: the feel of

the experience or how it compares to the culinary benchmarks already defined by heavy-hitting restauranteurs. I think the collective verdict is still out if the restaurants from fashion brands can compare to the establishments from tried-and-true hospitality groups—but so far, I don’t think they hit the mark. For diners open to the world-building taking place in these spaces, they might get some form of a palate cleanser for their imaginations. But maybe as brands are dissolving their boundaries between their offerings, for the time being, New Yorkers should continue to separate their love for a brand from where they choose to dine.

You’re Not The Only One on Resy: Why Every Fashion Brand Suddenly Wants a Table in New York