Kitchen Couture
How restaurant uniforms evolved from a rigid set of rules to anything goes.
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According to culinary legend, a chef’s toque contains ‘a hundred pleats for a hundred ways to cook an egg’. Often attributed to Marie-Antoine Carême, the founding father of French haute cuisine, it’s a romantic concept but almost certainly apocryphal. Carême, along with his successor Auguste Escoffier, is credited with popularising the use of tall, stiffened white hats that would eventually become the standard for chefs everywhere, but there’s no evidence that either of them spent any time feverishly matching pleat numbers to possible egg preparations. What is certain is that as far back as the 1800s, hospitality uniforms have played an integral part in shaping the way restaurants function, and the impressions they make on diners. And in recent years, as pop culture and restaurant culture have become one and the same, the fashion of the kitchen and the fashion of the street have begun to mimic one another.
From Escoffier’s era at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, through to the 1960s, high-end restaurant uniforms in western countries stuck to a predictable template. The aforementioned toque for chefs, worn with black-and-white checkered or houndstooth pants (for hiding spills) and a double-breasted white jacket where the flap could be reversed if things got too messy. On the floor, waitstaff traditionally wore clothes that were designed to mimic the wealth and sophistication of their moneyed customers while at the same time signalling servitude: suits with white gloves for the men, and evening dresses for the women, once they were eventually permitted to join them around the time of WW1.
“In the last decade… restaurants, cafes and bars have begun treating their staff’s uniform as a vital part of their unique brand expression.”
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But from the 1960s – coinciding with the rise of casual restaurants and cafes – the rules around restaurant dress loosened. And in the last decade especially, restaurants, cafes and bars have begun treating their staff’s uniform as a vital part of their unique brand expression, as important as the dining room’s colour scheme or the glassware choice.
Former couture designer Nicholas Oakwell of London-based uniform design company NO Uniform, was one of the first people to introduce a fashion sensibility into hotel and restaurant uniforms. Since opening NO Uniform in 2002 he has put staff in glamorous velvet smoking jackets and sequinned gowns at the Peacock Alley restaurant inside the newly-reopened New York Waldorf Astoria, and kimono and martial arts-inspired finery at Nobu London. “I [came] in as a fashion designer, thinking I’d add some ‘fashion style’ to uniforms,” he says. “But I realised very quickly it’s actually not about fashion, it’s about the brand. Who are they? What do they want to say?” When he’s commissioned to create a staff wardrobe for a venue he looks at everything holistically. “My philosophy is always to make the diner experience harmonious,” he says. “First it’s understanding the guests, which brands do they wear, what cars do they drive, their demographic. This gives an insight to what makes these people tick. Then it’s understanding all the other parts of the experience: the interior, the service level, the music, the scent, the ambiance.” Once he has all of that pinpointed, the uniform concept comes to life.
At the same time that Oakwell’s extravagant brand of restaurant dressing was taking shape, another more casual uniform trend emerged on the other side of the Atlantic. In 2012, Los Angeles line cook Ellen Marie Bennett realised she was tired of wearing flimsy aprons that fell apart, and decided to design her own. The aprons that would eventually form the backbone of her powerhouse hospitality brand Hedley & Bennett were made of sturdy fabrics such as canvas and denim, packed with practical pockets, and came in a range of rich colours. Crucially, they also came with adjustable ties, so they could better fit both male and female bodies.
In Sydney, another (unrelated) Bennett – former streetwear designer Huw Bennett – trod a similar path. He fell into designing for hotels and restaurants almost by accident, when a friend asked for help creating a uniform for the staff at Pumphouse Point in Tasmania. In 2015, that became the brand Worktones, which has cemented itself as one of the most recognisable hospitality uniform suppliers in the country. If you’ve ever seen a waiter wearing a practical but aesthetically-pleasing earth-toned apron and sneakers, or a loose-fitting, fashion-forward chore jacket, odds are you’re seeing Worktones at work.
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Worktones’ off-the-shelf options – from aprons to blazers – have allowed more hospitality venues to access uniforms that read equal parts cool and practical. But they also take great pride in working hand-in-hand with chefs and restaurateurs to create bespoke designs. Their jacket for the group behind Pellegrino 2000, Clam Bar, Neptune’s Grotto and Grandfathers – a combination of a French chore coat and the jackets from London’s St John – was a true collaboration. Co-owner Andy Tyson says they gave it the same personalised attention as they do every other inch of their venues, from the fish tanks at Grandfathers to the animal print walls at Neptune’s Grotto. A recent project with premium Melbourne butcher Peter Bouchier was also a true meeting of creative minds. “They came to us saying ‘here are the problems we currently have and how we would like to solve them, and this is the aesthetic we would like to match,” recalls Huw Bennett. They even brought their own moodboard. “It was a really constructive process. We love working that way.”
One person who has followed – and in some cases set the agenda – for the evolution of hospitality uniforms in Australia is Mucho Group creative director Jeremy Blackmore, the company behind Sydney bars Cantina OK!, Bar Planet and others. “When I started working in bars 20 years ago, uniforms were very buttoned up. It was a cheap black shirt, arm garters, sometimes a tie – very standard and boring.” Around 2009 or 2010, he says, coinciding with the rise of independent small bars in Sydney, uniforms began loosening up. “Everyone was in a dirty band t-shirt with a sleeve ripped off, remember that?” he says with a laugh.
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If anything, the look today is about dogged, deliberate uniqueness.
When he and Mucho Group co-owner Alex Dowd opened Tio’s Cerveceria in 2012, he says they were ‘pretty anti-uniform’ (“We were in t-shirts and towels for a long time”), but as the group expanded, a unified dress code became more of a focus. When they opened Cantina OK! in 2018, they looked towards classic Mexican cantinas as inspiration. “That’s how we ended up with these embroidered shirts with the ‘O’ and ‘K’ on the collar, along with a bright red apron,” he says. Each venue since has trodden its own unique uniform path, from the navy blue ‘dinner lady’ smocks at Enmore martini bar Bar Planet to the grasshopper-green waistcoats at Centro 86 in the CBD. Interestingly, at Bar Herbs, which opened in 2025, the aesthetic seems to have come full circle. “We're in a black shirt and a black tie, funnily enough. It feels a bit late 90s, early 2000s, a throwback to my own history.”
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In 2026, it’s difficult to pinpoint anything that could be classed as a defining hospitality uniform trend. If anything, the look today is about dogged, deliberate uniqueness. That might be the colourful vintage collaborations with Sydney social enterprise The Social Outfit or the soccer-inspired sportswear from Melbourne brand Soliela, that the team wears at Marrickville’s Baba’s Place. It includes the resolutely crisp, polished suits that Sydney brand Dallen makes for all three Rockpools (Sydney, Melbourne and Perth) and Perth’s Gibney Cottesloe. It might be the tiny oyster pins that the staff wear at Sydney’s Saint Peter, or the ‘no uniform’ uniforms at Feu at The Belongil in Northern NSW, where staff choose their own capsule pieces from hip Sydney fashion brand Song For The Mute. “I’m always measuring things in terms of guest contact: the GSM of the paper on a card, or a Dinosaur Designs spoon,” says Josh Niland of the small but meaningful tweaks he regularly makes to the look and feel of Saint Peter. He recently updated the kitchen team’s uniforms to a pale blue shirt that feels sleek and professional with just a little bit of whimsy. “If we’re going to invest, let’s invest in what the guests look at and touch and see.”
One thing about hospitality is certain: nothing stays the same for long. Is another big restaurant uniform trend waiting in the wings? Mucho’s Jeremy Blackmore ponders if the current growing backlash against AI and its over-techify-ing of everything could result in a flashback to the GFC era where we embraced all things folksy and handmade. Broderie anglais aprons and Birkenstocks, perhaps. “Oh I am so ready for 2007 Brooklyn again,” Blackmore jokes. “I’m ready to drink out of a mason jar.”
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Alexandra Carlton writes food and hospitality features for some of Australia’s leading mastheads. She is the NSW restaurant reviewer for Gourmet Traveller, and the academy chair (Oceania) for The World’s 50 Best Restaurants. She travels the world each month to eat everything she sees.
Juliet is a Melbourne-based illustrator and writer, and the creator of The Juliet Report. Her work explores culture through the lens of fashion and everyday ritual, documenting everything from clothing and interiors to objects, food and the small details that shape how we live.
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