Keap’s Wood Cabin candle has found a following in an unexpected place: New York City’s restaurant bathrooms. A version of this post originally appeared in Eater Today, which spotlights the freshest news and stories from across the food world every day. Subscribe now. It’s in the bathroom at Smithereens, and it’s in rotation at Cervo’s, Eel Bar, Hart’s, and the Fly. It’s at June Wine Bar and Rhodora. I knew Schmuck smelled familiar — and then, yep, there it was. I swear I’ve sniffed it at Tatiana, though my email asking for confirmation went unanswered. An Eater colleague clocked it at Elsa, and immediately bought one of her own (and then received another as a Christmas gift). Sophisticated but not overwhelming, recognizably branded but not flashy, it’s the Wood Cabin candle from Keap, and in New York City restaurants, it’s become a modern classic as far as bathroom candles go. Both Nick Tamburo of Smithereens and Moe Aljaff of Schmuck wanted Wood Cabin after smelling it at other restaurants. For Aljaff, that was, specifically, Cervo’s, he said in an email: “I remember walking into their bathroom and thinking it smelled unusually good, which is not a thought you normally have in a restaurant bathroom.” With notes of cedar, palo santo, and fireside embers, it offers a “romantic, transportive quality” that pairs well the “the small, cloistered, and intimate rooms” of his subterranean restaurant, according to Tamburo. Wood Cabin, which was launched in 2015, is Keap’s most popular scent. The owners…
