Excuse Me, Here’s the Bathroom

Excuse me, here's the bathroom.

Long before budding chefs around the world were placing dollops of culinary foam onto the plate, the restroom was already home to an assortment of foamed lavender, peppermint and rosemary. Yet have you ever heard any restaurateur publicly discuss the toilets? Or a food critic praise the décor de WC? Or a maître d gush about the Aesop soap paired with a Meyer’s basil-scented candle?

The story of food doesn’t start at the farm and end at the table. There is a third and final stop in the progression that deserves to be appreciated.

Restrooms are as much a part of the cooking profession as the kitchen, and in New York City, a legal requirement if you have seating for more than 19 people. Despite an entire industry dedicated to food criticism and thousands of citizen-foodies discussing the minute merits of every restaurant, the bathroom has been almost entirely overlooked. There seems to be a rule that it’s off-limits. Which is perhaps why the bathroom is the most telling room in the restaurant. It is an intimate look at what the restaurant is when nobody is watching. If the kitchen is the heart of the restaurant, the bathroom is the sexy birthmark that you don’t discover until the third date.

Every bathroom has the basic parts (throne, sink, door, toilet paper ideally), but just as each chef will treat the same piece of fish differently, each restaurant will present these items in their own way. They can be sublime with elegant, kaleidoscoping tiles enveloping polished pearl thrones and chalice-shaped sinks, draped in warm light. They can be bold and intense with bright pops of color leaping off the walls and fixtures with clashing motifs screaming the experimental philosophy of the restaurant. They can be minimal odes to restraint and refinement with white on white décor and directional bulbs painting the walls in light.

Take for example the comfort food favorite Five Leaves in Greenpoint, whose bathroom gives the secure feeling of being in a British submarine. It’s substantial and dependable, just like the cuisine on the other side of the door.

Then there’s DBGB in East Village, with wallpaper covered in more information than you’ll ever need to know about cookware, in French. A lesson to any patron who may have had une question about the cassoulet.

And of course, Isa, 2013 winner of a James Beard Award for Restaurant Design and Graphics, who take their heightened aesthetic with them to the toilet. The walls are a triangular patchwork of wooden boards and other assorted materials, there is circular glass inlaid on cement, and even one of those stone-looking speakers, all viewable from a multi-colored toilet. It’s an unexpected assortment, brought together effortlessly into one tasty dish for the eyes.

Joseph Leonard in West Village has a treatise called “Why I Write” on the wall. The South African restaurant Madiba in Fort Greene, Brooklyn uses ballots from the Mandela election as wallpaper. The Nomad and The Darby both have their names imprinted on the paper towels in case you’re part of the clientele who’ve had one too many of their crafted cocktails and can’t remember where you were dining.

Add to the visual sense the custom smell combinations of soaps and candles, the tactile feel of the towels and tp (three-ply? How luxurious) or the thoughtful soundscapes echoing in the solitary chambers, covering up the more flatulent echoes.

A beautiful bathroom lets you know the restaurant is paying attention. When the toilet paper holder has been considered, certainly everything above it in the restaurant hierarchy has as well.

The next time you have to “be right back” don’t forgot to stop and smell the rose potpourris. Appreciate the delicate and refined touches created and placed by

craftspeople who will likely not be recognized for their efforts, but who just can’t help themselves when it comes to perfectionism.

To those who’ve taken great pride in a room most people won’t acknowledge exists, I commend you. My work is in your honor and I hope you take it as such. If you’re looking for me I’ll be in the bathroom.

Bathroom Photographer Code of Conduct:

1) Take photos with an appreciation for the craft. Restaurants aren’t required or expected to have amazing bathrooms, it’s always a plus.

2) Make the bathrooms look as good as I can without altering it. I don't clean or pick up, but I will roll up a TP roll, give a fresh flush or rinse bubbles out of the sink.

3) Only photograph bathrooms I like. Mostly of places I like. I like food and try to avoid bad restaurants. I want to praise the good, so I don’t post the bad.

4) Stay neutral. I put the seat down if I remember (though mostly for aesthetics). I also rarely shoot urinals since half the population can’t appreciate them. I use the Men's bathroom if both are presented, for obvious reasons.

5) No graffiti. I don't photoshop it out, but I shoot around it as much as I can. It's not about my personal opinion of graffiti, it's just not part of the restaurant.

6) Lighting is true to feel. I color-correct because the bulbs, candles and dim lighting wreak havoc on the look. Some bathrooms have deliberate mood lighting like bright reds and blues. I try my best to make it look like I remember it looking.

7) Stay out. It’s hard sometimes to take a picture in a tiny room filled with mirrors without appearing in the photo. I contort and duck and hide into all sorts of strange positions to stay out as best I can.

8) Work quickly. The people in line behind me must hate me enough as it is. The primary function of a toilet is for customers and employees to pee. I try to “case” a place swiftly. It’s become a trained skill that I can accomplish fast enough that most people would imagine I just peed and maybe got lost in the mirror a bit.

9) Food first. The places I pick are primarily restaurants or bars with decent food menus. I occasionally, but very rarely, include a cocktail place if they take great care in their beverage offerings.

10) New York. I’ll go to any borough, but my project is New York based for now. This idea originally came about when I lived in San Francisco. I was amazed at Thomas Keller’s French Laundry in Yountville with individual rolls of toilet paper wrapped in ribbons, and a bathroom floor so clean you could eat off of it, and where you wouldn’t hesitate to lick the plate. Still, I’m a New Yorker now, so this is home to me and the project.