About three years ago a restaurant was brought to my attention that was said to offer a "truly unique and memorable experience." Given my weakness for such statements, I immediately started asking around who would like to join me at O.Noir for a dining in the dark affair that would promise to offer an experience like no other; that statement has since proven very true.
Years went by quickly, but eventually, as with most things I long for doing, the time came to say "No more procrastinating, no more excuses, and no more talk about the possibility of one day going." I picked up the phone and dialed the Church Street restaurant, securing reservations for a 6:00 seating. The only regret I have is not doing it sooner.
For those who have not heard of this place: it is, as mentioned earlier, a restaurant where diners are stripped of their sense of sight and are forced to eat in complete and total darkness. Now, I had prepared myself for this well in advance, but what I didn't understand until led into the room, was that total darkness
really means
total darkness. No light could seep into this room from anywhere and we quickly and oddly found ourselves confused as the whether or not our eyes were even open. But, before I get too far ahead of myself here, let's start from the beginning.
O.Noir is located underground on Church Street in Toronto, Ontario. Save for the awning at the front, there is no indication to a passerby that a restaurant would even exist there; but hey, underground = less chance for light to come in I suppose.
When you first walk into the lobby/bar area, you find your eyes already trying to adjust to a very, very dim atmosphere. The lights are kept low, like a candle flickering on it's last breath. The atmosphere is that of a strange underground library or, what my imagination pictures as some old forbidden den where some elite and highly secretive masons would meet to discuss their ancient secrets, far from the eyes and ears of any passing civilian. The room was decorated very simply, with a braille alphabet painted on the wall and some books lining the back area of the room (I found it odd that these books were here as they were printed and not braille...) There was a bar area where you could place an order before entering the dining room and other than that there was nothing to speak of.
As we stood in this room a waitress approached and passed us a menu, the process from there was pretty straight-forward: the menu consisted of fare from which to place you order; one appetizer, one main and one dessert for an extremely reasonable $40 a head.
The neatest part about the menu was that, for those more adventurous, you could bypass the whole thing and simply say "surprise me!" at which point your server would escort you to your table and your senses would be left to fend for themselves. Needless to say, this was the option we chose.
We were taken from this main lobby by a blind man name Arthur. Arthur informed me to place my left hand on his left should and we walked through a door. The room was dark beyond dark. Once that door closed we passed through a second door; and if I thought the first passage was like the depths of some abyss, this second room quickly taught me that I cannot pretend to understand the definition of dark any longer.
We walked slowly, hands on shoulders, through a room full of whispers and nothing else. When we got to our table he described for us in quick detail where and how to sit and what was in front of us. This is where things got interesting for me.
Before he could even tell me where it was, I had my fork and knife in hand. I knew where my wine glass was positioned, and I knew where the napkin was. My mind and body were functioning solely on what I've become accustomed to over the past 29 years, completely without sight.
Our table was against a wall, which helped for spatial awareness, and, just by listening to the echoes and bouncing of voices of thee surrounding walls, we believe there to be ten other tables in that particular dining room (there are 3 or 4 alternate dining rooms in the restaurant, presumably to keep things as orchestrated as possible). As we sat there and talked between ourselves, we found it strange that everyone seemed afraid to speak above a whisper; as though being in the dark meant some sort of signal for the brain to quiet down. Things got louder, however, as people became more comfortable with their environment and eventually it turned into the normal buzz of a restaurant dining room we'd all be used to.
Now, I don't want to focus too much here on whether or not the food was good. It was, let's leave it at that. Instead, what was more interesting was
how we tasted the food, which was with our hands.
Remember, we had no idea what was going to be served to us, and so when the server dropped these plates on our table, we had to just trust that it would be something tasty and, well, edible.
We began by going through normal actions of fork meets plate meets food meets mouth. This, in the dark, is rather difficult to accomplish. So, without even thinking about our actions, we found ourselves placing food onto our forks with our other hand, messy, yes, but necessary and a reflex. This eventually brought us to a point where we weren't using forks at all anymore, it was just a primitive rummage for whatever was on the plate and shovelling that into our mouths for quick consumption. What was truly interesting about this, however, was that it helped us to identify the food even more than the taste did. Green beans, for example, have a very distinct feel in your hands. As do potatoes and chicken and lettuce and chocolate mousse cake. You may not think about it when you pick them up at the grocery store, but when your mind is struggling and racing to determine what it is you are about to ingest, it goes through all of those file folders of textures hidden away in your brain and it finds the information it needs to move on.
And so it went on, course by course, deciphering and analyzing each component to each dish until we were totally satisfied that we knew what it was; and by this point we were so comfortable with the situation that it almost didn't need to be talked about anymore. We were happy and comfortable and totally content in experiencing something so completely foreign to our brain. And that's when the mood changed to panic.
When all the food was cleared and there was nothing left for us to explore, we just needed to get up and go, except we couldn't. We were totally and completely dependant on Arthur and without him there was no way we were going to get out of there. So we sat. Engulfed in darkness and nothingness we waited for our guide to return and lead us back into familiarity and independence. I won't say that it was the longest 5 minutes of my life, but it felt darn close to it.
So, when all was said and done, we paid our bill and left the restaurant as though our lives had somehow opened up a little bit. We understood food in a new way, but more than anything, we understood some of the things we take for granted so easily; like just getting up and leaving on our own accord.
I'd recommend O.Noir to anyone in an instant. Like I said, it's $40 for a three course meal that will be unlike anything you've ever had before. The food was very good, though not the greatest I will admit, and the conversations since going have been quite enlightening. It may not be for the less adventurous folks in the crowd, but for those willing to give new things a try, I must highly recommend that you go.
That being said, I doubt very much that I would return, at least not anytime soon. . It's certainly not the type of place where you'd say "Hey, I'm craving chicken, let's go eat in the dark." But, for someone who wants to get a different perspective and appreciation for food, I can honestly say that I once was blind...but now I see.
Cheers everyone and happy eating!
http://www.onoir.com/TO/frames.htm
