(The following story was published in “Epicure,” the magazine for the 2009 Pebble Beach Food & Wine event, April 16-19, 2009)

By Carolyn Jung

Over the years as general manager and maitre d’hotel of some of San Francisco’s toniest restaurants — Masa’s, Gary Danko and the Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel –Nick Peyton never instituted a dress code for diners in any of those elegant dining rooms.

Wasn’t necessary, he says. Never even considered it.

Until three years ago.

That was when a gentleman in shorts, a muscle T-shirt, and flip-flops walked into Cyrus in Healdsburg, where Peyton is maitre d’hotel/co-owner. At the Michelin two-star restaurant, caviar and champagne selections are rolled to the table on a gilded cart, and servers set down every dish at the table simultaneously in a polished dance.

“The guy said he called and was told there was no dress code,” recalls Peyton, who nevertheless seated the man because he was with a well-known winemaker. “I said, ‘I guess I’ve just come up with a dress code then.’ ”

Prompted by that man’s attire — or lack thereof — Peyton instituted his first dress code that’s still in place at Cyrus, which bans shorts, sleeveless T-shirts, and yes, flip-flops.

Times were only a generation or two ago that diners took pains to dress the part when dining out. Times have changed. Restaurants now are responding by tightening — or loosening — their own standards as a result.

At Thomas Keller’s exalted Per Se in New York and French Laundry in Yountville, men must don jackets for lunch or dinner. But at Aureole in New York, the jackets-required rule that stood for 17 years fell by the wayside two years ago. When the venerable Le Cirque re-opened two years ago in its new New York building, the Maccione sons convincingly argued to soften the “jackets required” decree in the main dining room to “jackets suggested” in the cafe portion of the restaurant, much to patriarch Sirio Maccione’s dismay.

For good or bad, society has not only embraced the “Casual Fridays” concept, but a segment has gone so far as to adopt it to mean “casual anytime we feel like it.”

“When we hit the tech boom, it was probably the worst era for fashion for all time,” says David Bernahl, chief executive of the upscale men’s and women’s boutique Pacific Tweed in Carmel, and co-founder of the Pebble Beach Food & Wine event. “You had new wealth, and guys who were brilliant programmers and engineers who became leaders of industry overnight. What they were comfortable in influenced fashion. They were worth a billion dollars, and wore T-shirts and shorts. It wasn’t done well.”

In some cases, it still isn’t. At Cyrus, Peyton has gone so far as to loan clothing-challenged male diners a pair of black suit pants normally worn by the servers.

“It boggles my mind when people come in and obviously they’ve rolled out in their most casual outfit. And it’s not a nice pair of jeans, and it’s not a nice sweatshirt,” Peyton says. “I watch couples come in, and the woman is beautifully turned out, and the guy is a schlub. I sit there and think, ‘You’re going to spend a large amount of money here. Don’t you want to feel special?’ ”

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