A unique dining experience

Long before the London Eye was built the world already had an iconic Ferris wheel, the Wiener Riesenrad at the Prater amusement park in Vienna (above). You may recognize it from the 1949 film The Third Man, or from the James Bond movie The Living Daylights. When I visited in 2002 I took the photo below; I didn’t know that dining on the Wiener Riesenrad was a well-established way to celebrate a special evening. I thought it was the most interesting dining experience I had ever seen.

Until last night.

At the restaurant O.NOIR in Montreal patrons eat in the dark. The real dark. The pitch-black, I-can’t-see-my-hand-in-front-of-my-face dark. As their website puts it:

It’s a sensual dining experience like no other. When you eat without your sight, your remaining senses are heightened to savour the smell and taste of food. O.NOIR does more than just fire the imagination and stimulate the senses. After a while in complete darkness (that’s right, no flashlights, matches, cell phones, cigarette lighters or luminous watches), customers gain a better understanding of what it’s like to be blind – just like the restaurants’ entire wait staff. 

After our reservation was confirmed we were told the procedure and shown to a table in the lounge to await the second seating and to peruse the menu. A choice of two or three courses was available; each category – apps, mains and desserts – had maybe eight choices, one of which was a “surprise” – you wouldn’t know what it was until you ate it – if then. At 8:30 we were told to meet our server near the entrance to the dining room.

The adventure began. Julie, our blind waiter, introduced herself and told Ransom to put his hand on her shoulder and me to put mine on Ransom’s. A curtain was pulled aside and we walked slowly into a pitch-black room which Julie navigated easily. Trusting her, we kept up. She brought us to a table, telling us where the wall was and asking that we slide our chairs as far as we could under the table. She told us the location of everything that was on the table. From then on we were alone at a small table in total darkness; not for a moment could I see anything.

It was a fascinating experience. I had beef tartare, pork loin and a crème brulée; Ransom chose the surprise app, which tuned out to be a scallop ceviche, followed by a shrimp and rice dish and profiteroles for dessert. All the food was excellent and, to my knowledge, we finished every bit of it.

That was actually a bit tricky. Many times I lifted my fork to my mouth only to find it empty. Or I cut a piece of meat only to spear a different, too-large-to-eat piece. In the dark of course these things are easily covered. Without the visual cues it wasn’t always easy to know what I was eating. “Ah-hah, that’s a tomato, but what’s it stuffed with?”

The noise level went up and down and, at its loudest, was irritating. The couple next to us – a foot away? two feet? – were totally intelligible. Had I wanted to I could have followed their conversation entirely. Was that because my hearing was more sensitive in the dark? Maybe, but I’m guessing that kind of change would take time.

The evening ended a tad disappointingly as we were kept waiting far too long for our dessert and then again to be escorted out of the room. But the overall experience remains a highly positive, and totally fascinating, one. After settling the bill in the (comfortably lit) front room we walked back to our hotel, glad of our sight and perhaps a bit more sympathetic to those without it.

-->