Gather a pile of napkins, wear clothes that won’t show a dribble or miss-hit, and let go of lurking childhood fears. These are all necessary preparations for an elegant, three-course meal—in the dark.
Dining in the dark is not a romantic dinner by candlelight. It is eating in pitch dark—as in you can’t see your fork or your companion’s face. In 1999, the trend migrated from Zurich, Switzerland, where the concept began as a way to create jobs for blind and handicapped people. Since then it has surfaced in at least twenty European cities, four U.S. cities, and in Canada, Australia, and China.
Turn Out the Lights, Turn Up the Flavor
Depriving one’s eyesight, the theory goes, will heighten other senses. The Web site for the Unsicht-Bar, a small chain of restaurants in Germany, describes dining in the dark as “abandoning your visual impulses … to experience what wonderful work your other senses are capable of. Feel a gentle breeze. Feel the things on your table. Let your nose explore unknown horizons and experience pure taste without any visual pretence. A genuine sensory rush!” The Unsicht-Bar takes the dark seriously, banning flashlights, watches, and mobile phones.
Like the German restaurants, Opaque, a chain in San Francisco, San Diego, and Los Angeles, maintains the authenticity of the idea and hires all blind servers who guide diners to their table in the inky blackness.
Dark Dining Projects in New York is held at rotating restaurants, most frequently at Camaje, and is not staffed by blind waiters. Instead the diners wear blindfolds, lowering the fear factor but also increasing the chance of peeking. At Whale Inside Dark Restaurant in Beijing, the servers wear military-grade night vision goggles. There, the dark serves another purpose for Chinese who tend to be shy, according to the proprietor. It not only intensifies patrons’ senses, but also acts as a social stimulant, lowering their inhibitions. The restaurant is a hot spot for Internet daters.
The restaurants that rely on goggles and blindfolds are likely to inhibit frisky customers. But at least one reviewer of a Canadian truly dark restaurant suggested that the couple next to hers was enjoying more than just their food.
Vision Follies
Dark dining has its problems. Forks miss the mark and spoons come up empty. The rules vary but certain foods are generally avoided: peas, spaghetti, and prawns, to name a few. Meat comes boneless. If soup is served at all, it comes ready to drink in double-handled mugs and finger food is standard fare. It’s common for waiters to offer helpful instructions such as “risotto at three o’clock” and “this course is to be eaten with a spoon.”
Opaque offers diners the choice between ordering specific dishes or—to add to the mystery and really test out of those taste buds—choosing from a general category, such as the fish, and figure out the rest while munching.
Some dining in the dark restaurants get mediocre marks on the food, which makes it hard to swallow the hefty price tag. Opaque charges $99 a head for a three-course meal, which doesn’t include tax, tip, or wine. The bill for two might inch closer to the $300 range. The Opaque price range seems to be on par wherever dark dining is offered. The menus, though, vary wildly. Opaque offers a fairly standard California-style cuisine such as free-range chicken breast accompanied by Israeli couscous with leeks, broccoli rabe, and sun dried tomato semi glace. At the Unsicht-Bar, where diners only vaguely know what they are being served, the kitchen limits their spices to salt, pepper, garlic, and herbs to preserve the original flavor.
The Beijing restaurant is the bargain with traditional Chinese noodle dishes and soups that will only put a couple back about $30. (Although the idea of waiters in night-vision goggles is a bit spooky.)
It’s hard to predict when the novelty will wear off and whether it is a trend that can gain a following of repeat customers. In Sweden and Germany, dining in the dark business is booming. Yet Opaque no longer offers regular dinners in San Diego, but arranges them for private parties at request. In Los Angeles, it has moved from the West Hollywood Hyatt to the V Lounge, a club in Santa Monica. It seems to be still going strong in food-centric San Francisco, with dinners from Thursday through Saturday nights. (Although the restaurant has started to offer a Thursday night special, lowering the price to $79.)
An interesting experiment would be to go on a truly blind date—meeting there without first seeing each other. Imagine discovering an initial attraction purely on what can be gathered in conversation and the person’s voice and smell. Emerging into the light, however, could take some adjustment.