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Food in the nude: Paris gets its first naked restaurant

Now you know where to go if you want to eat a slap up meal in the nude in Paris.

Food in the nude: Paris gets its first naked restaurant
Photo: Woman with Jelly Candy/Depositphotos

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The restaurant is appropriately named O’naturel and can be found on rue de Gravelle in the 12th arrondissement.

And it's opening to the public on Friday, after what the managers considered to be a successful soft opening on Thursday, reported Le Parisien newspaper.

“Tonight, we only had the members of the Paris Naturist Association. They’ve supported us from the beginning, and we reserved our first soirée for them,” restaurant manager Mike and Stephane Saada told the paper.

Photo: O’naturel/restaurant website

The pair added that the association members were happy with the experience.

Diners at the restaurant, which can seat 40 and where a meal costs around €30, are asked to leave all their clothes in the wardrobe before entering the dining room. 

And neighbours – intrigued at first – appear to be welcoming the idea. 

“It doesn’t bother me at all, or my neighbours,” a man called Mehdi told the paper.

“We don’t see anything from the street. We know what’s happening. It’s not a massage parlour.”

It remains unclear whether Parisians will have an appetite for nude dining, but the naturist scene in the French capital is positively booming. Indeed, the Bunyadi nudist restaurant, which has proven popular in London, was also reportedly eyeing Paris for its second restaurant. 

And in August this year, Paris officials opened the city’s first nudism park, tucked away in a secluded area of the Bois des Vincennes to the east of the city.

It closed for the winter in mid-October.

Paris just opened its first nudist park

File photo of a nudist hike: AFP

Parisians already have one public pool where they can swim in the buff three times a week, and across the country some 460 areas are reserved for naked enjoyment, including 155 camping sites and 73 beaches.

More than 2.6 million people in France have made nudism a regular habit, according to the France 4 Naturism association.

Indeed, the French are no strangers to nudity. For a start they have a tendency to get naked when protesting, as these images show.
 
Last year, French tourist officials went as far as urging Brits to come to experience the nudist sides of France for a holiday. 
 
“People are seeing a new side of France – everyone knows about the wine, the gastronomy, the winter skiing, the city breaks, but this is a bit more unusual,” the campaign's spokesperson told The Local at the time.
 
“It's not often you hear a friend say 'I'm going to a nudist beach for my next holiday'. The whole idea is still a bit peculiar.”
 
 

FOOD AND DRINK

Cheese in numbers: France’s obsession with fromage

From cheese types to the amount eaten per year, via cheese favourites - here's a look at how France really feels about fromage.

Cheese in numbers: France’s obsession with fromage

March 27th is the Journée nationale du fromage in France – so here are a few facts about the delicious dairy delicacy.

246

Charles de Gaulle famously once asked of governing France: “How can anyone govern a country with 246 varieties of cheese?”.

His numbers were wrong. Producers in France make closer to 1,000 varieties of cheese – and some have estimated that figure could be pushed up as high as 1,600.

8

The number of cheese ‘families’ in France. A good cheeseboard in France is generally considered to consist of at least three ‘families’ – a soft cheese, a hard cheese and either a blue or a goat’s cheese. Remember, too, an odd number of fromages on a platter is better than an even number, according from cheese etiquettists

READ ALSO France Facts: There are eight cheese families in France

2.5

About how long – in years – it would take you to try every cheese made in France, if you tried a new variety every day. Life goals. 

95

The percentage of people in France who say they eat cheese at least once a week, spending seven percent of their weekly food bill on it.

READ ALSO Best Briehaviour: Your guide to French cheese etiquette

40

Two-fifths of French people say they eat cheese every day

57

The amount of cheese produced, in kilogrammes, in France every second, according to this website, which has a counter to show you how fast that really is. It’s estimated that 1.8 million tonnes of cheese are produced in France every year.

27

The French consume, on average, a whopping 27 kilogrammes of cheese per person per year.

READ ALSO Fonduegate: Why customer service is different in France

3

The three most popular cheeses in France, based on sales, are Emmental, Camembert, and Raclette – followed by mozzarella, goat’s cheese, Comté and Coulommiers.

63

Some 63 cheeses have been awarded the Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée status, which means they can only be produced in a certain region.

1

France has – or at least soon will have – one dedicated cheese museum. 

READ ALSO Three things to know about the new Paris cheese museum

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