The idea of eating in total darkness is a strange one. On the face of it, exactly why would you want to entirely cut off your most dominant sense and descend into pitch blackness? Why experience voluntarily what’s it like to…

… be served a “surprise” menu that could potentially entail a plateful of entrails, or something worse, like baked beans. (I never got used to the sloppy/mushy combination).

… eating shoulder to shoulder with strangers who might get away with anything in the dark: stealing your wine glass, making illicit advances, dropping a ball of ice cream into your handbag ‘by mistake’.

All these thoughts troubled me before I went to the Les Halles branch of Dans Le Noir for a friend’s birthday last week.

There is no darkness but ignorance (Shakespeare).

Looking past such obstacles to create an award-winning restaurant concept was a task that Parisian founders Edouard de Broglie and Etienne Boisrond took in hand when they established Dans Le Noir in 2004. The idea wasn’t just to delight in clumsy diners pouring wine all over the table, or snigger when a hapless guest lost his fork during the entrées and was doomed to scooping up his food with his fingers for the remainder of the meal. It was to raise awareness of what it’s actually like to be blind and live in perpetual darkness.

The waiters and waitresses working at Dans Le Noir are all blind or partially sighted, and as a guest you have to trust them 100% – from your first tentative steps through the blackout curtain, to the moment they usher you back to the light for your well deserved cocktail. There’s no storming out of this restaurant if you find a hair in your soup, and no popping to the ladies to readjust your lip gloss. There’s just you, the darkness, and the harder-than-you-would-think task of trying to pour wine into a wineglass. Red wine? White wine? You thought you would easily be able to tell from the taste?

Eating without seeing means the sensitivity of your taste buds is suddenly heightened; they’ve become sense number one, and they’re keen to live up to the job. It is surprisingly difficult to identify even the most obvious foods when you cannot see them (we spent a large part of the meal racking our brains to recognise ‘fennel’ – a serious triumph), but, seen or not, the pungently tasty garlic mushrooms and deeply creamy potato dauphinoise were delicious, the fish was bone-free and perfectly cooked, and the whole combination of flavours left me wanting more.  Once I’d finished wiping the plate with my fingers, that is. I may be merely a pasta-eating student and no connoisseur, but I enjoyed every mouthful, including the ‘taste wildcards’ like liquorice in the dessert plate, and I loved the sensational flavour boost that results from not using your eyes.

It may not be the place for a first date; both the exacerbated noise levels and high possibility of spillage don’t exactly encourage an amorous environment, but take your friends, wear something stain-proof, and you are guaranteed an impressive, out-of-the-ordinary experience that is sure to make you think.

http://www.danslenoir.com