'Blind' restaurant comes to London
Paris has got one, as have Zurich and Berlin. Now London is to get a taste of the 'blind eating' experience with the summer opening of the latest branch of Dans le Noir (which, my GCSE French tells me, means something like "in the dark". Clever, huh?)
So, yeah, what happens is this: the restaurant is completely dark. Pitch black, in fact. Because all those sighted patrons won't know Braille, you get to choose your meal from the menu whilst mooching around in the bar beforehand, but once you enter the blacked-out restaurant you get guided to your seat by the blind staff, who also serve the meals. Any move you make while in the restaurant has to be done with the help of your guide - even getting directed to the Gents or Ladies.
Oh, and wine is apparently served in unbreakable glasses, in order to protect against spillages. Bless!
Speaking in , Edouard de Broglie, the man behind the idea, says that it's all about improving the culinary experience: "The preconception of what food tastes like because of how it looks is gone. All your other senses are abruptly awoken and you taste the food like you have never tasted it before. It makes you rethink everything. You become blind and the blind waiters become your guide". Wow, profound stuff. And completely true, of course. My friend who's blind says his Pot Noodles taste a hundred per cent better 'cos he can't see 'em. Really.
There's only one thing I'm wondering about. Will blind diners get a hefty discount on their bill? I think we at Ouch should test this out by getting a coach party together for a night out in Clerkenwell when the new restaurant opens in the summer. Who's in?
Comments
Hmmm.. Idea is OK. But I am not for testing.
I think it's just another trendy gimmick. I'm glad he didn't try and justify it as adding to the understanding of being Blind. I'm sure some patrons will find it an hilarious experience, but what will they have next - a soup kitchen where people eat wearing electric suits that give you spasms?
Would you go to the restaurant of a man who cynically blindfolds the patrons because he believes it'll make his food taste nicer? Blind people think Pot Noodle's taste nice cos thye can't see it? Ludicrous.
As a visually impaired person this comes to mind. Waiter, did you know there is a fly in my soup? Its not a fly, its a moth; flies dont fly in the dark So what is the moth doing in there? Drowning, sir.
a highly insensitive gimmick at the expense of the visually impaired - shame on you
For those of us who are blind, I think that this is a kind of insult to us. The restaurant is using are misfortune as a kind of gimmick, of course sighted people will find it funny/interesting to eat in the dark, but that's what us blind people have to do to an extent on a day to day basis. You shouldn't have to eat in the dark for the food to excite you taste buds, if the food is that good your taste buds should be excited anyway. What will they come up with next?
I reckon this blind restaurant is a funny but mad idea. I 've come up with a strange thought in my mind that it will be like the 'Two Soups' sketch with Julie Walters where they will spill things before they get to the tables. Ha! Ha! Only Joking! Put me down for the coach trip, I will come with you but it's your round for the drinks.
I tried the Dans le Noir in Paris. While it's not something I would be in a hurry to try again, it's definitely an experience worth seeking out. It 'opens your eyes' (excuse the pun) for a short while to living without sight. It's spooky but worth a visit, probably best as a group.
im not sure whether id try it or not. im a wheelchair user and wouldnt b totally offended if they made some sort of wheelchair cafe (even tho i dunno how it would work to the full extent) so i think maybe ppl need 2 not think of it as a mick take but as codge said, an experience, perhaps worth trying to try and understand the misfortune of being blind
hiya i am a year 11 student and i'm doing GCSE food technology. can you please send us some information or recipies for desserts.
thank you
katie
Reading all the comments above it seems to me that most people are missing the point. By taking away the most influencial sense we have,our sight. Our other senses are hightened and we SLOW DOWN (which seems to be an alien concept to most city folk) The food just TASTES better it's as simple as that, so don't be so narrow minded and give it a go!
Having just been to the Berlin dark restaurant I can add that the experience for sighted patrons is NOT at all about enhancing the taste of food. In fact, eating food that tastes like K-rations out of an army tin and stabbing your fingers into garlic butter isn’t about improving the culinary experience. Oh sorry now I’ve insulted war veterans as well as the blind. Dispense with the awkward PC and appreciate that a reason for prejudice/ignorance about the blind amongst some sighted people is the lack of integration of blind people in the workplace. How many sighted people truly appreciate the extent of activities that a blind person undertakes through the development of other skills and use of other senses? Moreover, eating in pitch black conditions allows a sighted person to reflect on how they perceive their parameters, materials, objects, people, sounds around them through the remaining senses- and then worry about what they’re eating.
Ok, a clever business approach not to be sniffed at- but here are a great many things about society more 'insulting' to blind people than sighted people eating in the dark. ‘Gimmick’ implies a devious aspect and the criticism of personally ‘offending’ the blind is misconceived. The blind waiter was charming and open about his disability, explaining how he lost his sight at 22, flawlessly proffering rolls and serving several dishes at once. When he laughs warmly at our hopeless attempts in pouring a glass of wine it is obvious that if there is any ‘gag’ or ‘gimmick’ here, it’s at the sighted person’s expense. The dark restaurant experience is also about contributing to the notion of a functional equal opportunities workforce rather than paying lip service to it with a plaque on the wall.
So, whilst the food was like eating the leftovers of a children’s birthday party, to visit the dark restaurant is to experience sensory change (in the absence of light) and is a subjective reflection on what is left to be able to communicate and comprehend one’s environs. It’s about appreciating human perception, adaptation and resilience NOT pretending to be blind to make your chicken korma taste better.
Should read '...There are a great many things more insulting to blind people.....'
Can anyone tell me the names of the restaurants mentioned in London, Berlin, and Zyrich?
Thanks a lot
I'm blind, and I find this rather an amusing idea, and a potentially good one, because it might increase people's understanding of blind people's lives.
When I was at school, (a boarding school for blind and partially-sighted people) we had an irritating domestic science teacher, whose most annoying catchphrase, which she tended to use on blind people a lot, was, "If you go any slower you'll be going in reverse".
(Her unpleasantness was such that I gave up her subject as soon as I could; but as an amusing corollary, a few years later, I sprained my ankle badly and had to be confined to the school sick bay for a while because the doctor said I wasn't allowed to put my weight on it for a couple of weeks, and it turned out that she'd been given a room next to mine for a couple of days - staff privilege you know; it's just such a hassle to go home at night sometimes! ;-) but I imagined how amusing it might be to go limping out of my room, happen to meet her, and say, "I know, I know, if I go any slower I'll be going in reverse.") :-7
But the point is that blind people Have to do things more slowly than sighted people. It takes longer to feel for things first before doing something to them than it does to just do something to them without having to; it takes longer to walk around a room with obstacles sticking out that you can't see than it does if you know they're there so you don't have to be cautious around them in case you bang into them and hurt yourself; etc. It appeared that despite working with blind people, this had never occurred to her.
I could give more examples of other people's crass lack of understanding of a similar nature, although I've only come across it in a small minority of the people I've met. However, perhaps if more people went through a little of "the blind experience", :-7 maybe it would happen less.
Of corse, the man whose idea it was couldn't actually give that reason for the restaurant's existence, or all the people who could do with learning a lesson from it would rebel and not go there. :-7 He'd have to make up some blarney about the food tasting nicer when he was put on the spot by the question about why the restaurant existed, to entice them in instead. Quite clever really. :-7