france

Turns Out People Would Rather Not Dine Out Naked

Nudist restaurant, O'Naturel.
Happy diners at O’Naturel. Photo: GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT/AFP/Getty Images

There are plenty of activities in which it’s universally preferable to be butt-naked: showering, slipping your body into some sort of healing mud bath, skinny dipping, and of course, Doing It. Absent from that list is dining on haûte cuisine, to which one French restaurant is coming to the sad realization.

After opening just a little over a year ago, O’Naturel, a nudist restaurant in Paris, will be shuttering its doors in February . While those who went there to dine on the finest oysters or foie gras while completely naked apparently left the restaurant rave reviews, Yahoo News reports that the owners just couldn’t get enough business to stay open.

Understandably, this news is a huge blow to the nudist community, who celebrated the pioneering restaurant’s opening in November 2017. (London opened a naked restaurant in 2016, but it was just a pop-up.) However, some of the restaurant’s fans, like Paris Naturist Association vice-president Cedric Amato, have acknowledged that maybe O’Naturel was a little ahead of its time.

“It may have been a little early,” he told AFP, noting that it was in a residential area and regrettably lacked an outdoor terrace for when the weather was pleasant.

For those longing to have the Nude Dining Experience before the restaurant’s closure on February 16 (just before Valentines Day — ideal!), the owners told their Facebook fans, “It is now or never.”

“We are counting on you to support us,” they wrote. “We thank everyone for taking part in this adventure. We will only remember the good moments and the great people we met.”

Turns Out People Would Rather Not Dine Out Naked