Dramatic entertaining can start with the right look. Consider these four statement-making hospitality brands for your next evening with every Chef’s essential kitchen attire. Whether you’re a home cook looking for a fun way to express yourself while entertaining, a professional chef who’s aiming to add more function into your flow, or a restauranter curious about how best to customize kitchen style for your front of house team, this unique set of apron brands have got you covered.
Hedley & Bennett
If you’ve seen any recent episodes of Top Chef, or FX’s award-winning show, The Bear, you’ve already seen a Hedley & Bennet apron in action. This Los Angeles-based company, founded by chef and TV-host, Ellen Bennett, is on a mission to inspire and empower creativity and confidence in the kitchen one apron at a time. They offer a specialized, one-of-a-kind design portal that makes creating the apron of your dreams a seamless process, complete with thousands of design possibilities. They’ve also got an extensive selection of fun and quirky styles ready-to-ship; so whether you’re really into polka dots, florals, or a full denim apron, you’ll more than likely find it here.
Reluctant Thread
In the small city of Kannur, off the coast of India, there’s a company hand weaving fabric for aprons on wooden looms that were built over 100 years ago. Reluctant Thread, a company started by longtime friends in 2018, prides itself on creating handmade aprons by skilled local artisans. Their aprons come in many different shapes, colors, and sizes; but perhaps their most innovative offering are their wrinkle-resistant, low-maintenance aprons, perfect for those of us looking to step up our kitchen style with minimum effort. Reluctant Threads also has a sister company, The Reluctant Trading Experiment, that’s dedicated to sourcing the best spices, tea, and coffee from all over the world. There you’ll also find a wide array of salt and pepper mills, and other kitchen tool essentials, making Reluctant Thread a place to upgrade your wardrobe and your kitchen pantry.
Risdon & Risdon
For those looking to make more sustainable upgrades to their kitchen attire, the family-owned British textile and accessories brand, Risdon & Risdon will surely have what you’re looking for. Their aprons feature time-honored and classic designs, with rigorous attention paid to sourcing the best quality sustainable materials and components. As a company they’ve also made a zero-waste commitment, meaning even if any material cutoffs or scraps are too small for them to use, they’re donated to local charities focused on finding creative ways to re-use and recycle materials. Risdon & Risdon’s devotion to creating a sustainable product is so important to them that they even offer a Free Repairs for Life service with all of their products.
Tilit
If you’re looking to add more functionality into your kitchen wardrobe and beyond, look no further than Tilit. This New York City-based brand, founded in 2012 by husband-wife team Alex McCrery and Jenny Goodman, is all about creating functional hospitality workwear. While they’ve got aprons in a variety of different colors, styles, and sizes, what makes Tilit such a unique hospitality company is their commitment to also designing high-performance workwear clothing. They offer a wide range of made-to-order uniform programming for potential wholesale clients and collaborate with some of the biggest chef names in the industry (Paola Velez, Sohla El-Waylly, Kwame Onwuachi, just to name a few) on custom designs, and offer a wide range of workwear items ranging from expertly crafted jumpsuits and overalls to chef coats.
