This one’s for all the messy eaters out there; the young professionals rocking silk dresses and too-nice button-ups to post-work dinners and drinks. This is for everyone who has ever contemplated tucking a white cloth napkin into the top of their shirt. Sure, you could order whatever you wanted! You’d protect your outfit! You’d lose your dignity.
It’s an often-experienced yet nearly invisible problem in our dining culture: staying clean requires such extensive effort, and yet is a land mine of potential embarrassments. But there’s an unsung hero in this story, waiting in the wings to save us all from expensive drycleaning bills and bungled first dates: The disposable adult bib. This quick fix isn’t just for seafood shacks and beachside restaurants anymore; the bib is taking a prominent role alongside napkins and tableware at some of New York’s trendiest dining spots.
Masaharu Morimoto’s Momosan , the Iron Chef’s first ramen-focused restaurant, draws a steady, well-dressed crowd. Trendy enough to not take reservations, this New York hotspot is hopping on the adult bib trend. Before being presented with what is arguably one of New York’s best bowls of ramen, guests are given a disposable paper bib, which servers are happy to help tie around the necks of any solo ramen eaters. On a busy Wednesday night, no one wearing a bib seemed to display once ounce of embarrassment about wearing a plasticized paper sheet, and across the chef’s counter, Morimoto even gave me a thumbs up for using my then-dirtied bib.
So why bibs?
“Ramen is best when eaten fast with a perfect slurp,” Morimoto told me via e-mail. “As I thought about my Momosan concept, I felt that many of my guests during their quick lunch break or dinner with friends would need a bib or apron to protect their outfits from the splashes of broth.” With professional attire and fashion in mind, Morimoto wanted to provide a disposable bib to help customers “enjoy my ramen … and save money from dry cleaning.”
If for any reason a customer is anti-bib, Morimoto also plugs his Momosan t-shirts available for purchase, which can be layered over more luxe outfits. You gotta love a considerate—and enterprising—chef.
Morimoto said the response to the disposable bibs has been rather positive, with guests finding them fun and useful. The evidence lies in the broth-splashed bibs pulled off after the meal—clothes are saved, inhibitions lost.
Morimoto isn’t the only big name chef to latch onto the adult bib trend. David Chang now offers disposable, branded bibs with his delivery-only restaurant Ando.
“The food that we love to serve is potentially messy to eat [like the New York cheesesteak] and it’s often eaten in an environment where you have to be as neat as possible,” explained Jordan Kong, Head of Business Operations at Ando.
Ando , which currently only delivers in Manhattan’s Midtown East, was created with the office worker dining at his or her desk in mind. Kong said the bib is included with the meal to help “let people let loose a little bit and enjoy eating the food.”
As an online-only restaurant, Ando looks for creative ways to interact with customers, and the bib helps. “People love taking pictures of themselves with the bib on or posting videos on Facebook,” Kong said, “We like it when people have fun when eating.”
Yet Sydney Mondry, a freelance writer who posted an Instagram of herself in the Ando bib, isn’t totally on board with the bib trend.
“I generally think bibs look a little silly,” she said. “I put on the Ando bib for a picture, but since I was at work, I definitely felt weird wearing it.”
Mondry, who does not identify as a particularly messy eater said she “probably wouldn’t use it again” for a weekday desk lunch where most of her co-workers are not bibbed. A meal with a bibbed cohort, however, is a different story.
“I think it’s normal to use a bib when eating lobster or barbecue, since you’re usually not the only one wearing one,” she said. “I feel like bibs encourage you to embrace gluttony and really enjoy the food.”
The gluttons who dine at Hillstone, a national chain dating back to 1977, are long familiar with the adult bib. Recently praised by Bon Appetit’s Andrew Knowlton in an article entitled, “Welcome to Hillstone, America’s Favorite Restaurant,” Hillstone is recognized for its button-hole napkins, which you can “affix one to your shirt like a spaghetti-eating character in Goodfellas ,” Knowlton describes.
Though Hillstone’s official dress code—yes, this is a restaurant with an official dress code which also provides bib napkins—does not mandate formalwear, it prohibits beachwear, active wear and athletic attire. This is a restaurant that cares how people look, whether their guests are conducting business, celebrating special occasions, or merely indulging in a juicy spit roasted chicken.
Though the bib may still be a slow-building trend, we’re getting behind it—and not because we’re big babies. No one wants to be that person with the napkin tucked into her shirt, or rocking a splattered outfit for a post-dinner nightcap. In the tough world of staying clean and eating well, we’d much rather be those people rocking a signature bib at a trendy restaurant, content in our gluttony.
