Dans le Noir is a restaurant offering the visitor a dining experience in complete darkness.

Kang Leong lets us know his experience

Dan le Noir
31-33 Clerkenwell Green
EC1R 0DU
Tel: 020 7253 1100

There are only a few places in Europe where you can find a place to do
this. Fortunately for us folks in London, you can experience this at Dan
le Noir. No I’m not pulling your leg, this is a genuine restaurant and a
very real concept.

Explain ‘complete darkness’ to me again?

The creators emphasize that Dan le noir lets you ‘completely re-evaluate
your notions of taste’ as they strip you of your sense of sight and force
you to rely on your other senses to truly taste the ‘truth of the food’.

Lets demystify that a little. The concept is rather straightforward,
really. When you arrive, you must put away any light emitting elements,
ie, mobile phones, watches that ‘light up’ in the lockers provided in the
reception area. You can also have some drinks in the completely lit bar on
the 1st floor. After which, the blind waiters will guide you through to
the dining room which is completely pitch black.

My experience.. twice.

I’ve actually been to this place twice and both times, it was a
real..well, experience. I must say that it’s still quite vivid in my
memory because I can still remember the smell of the food and the sounds.
Oddly enough, it’s quite sticky in my mind even though I didn’t have any
visual memories of it.

Ok, if you want to eat here, you need to book about a week in advance just
so they can make arrangments. It’s partly a good thing because Dan le noir
actually helps promote awareness for the blind and also help to support
the community. Ok, the first thing you do is order from a surprise menu
and specify if you want the meat, fish or veg menu. Part of the experience
is to ‘guess’ what you are eating by trying to identify the flavours. The
idea is that once you are robbed of one of your senses, the others should
work hard to compensate for it and become amplified.

The first time I closed my eyes

I put my hand on the waiter’s shoulder and he takes me into the land of
the dark. I have my eyes completely wide open, but the room is really
pitch dark (except for this faint speck of light in the distance which I
can’t make out what it is..). It really does feel quite jarring and almost
immediately my hearing is amplified and the waiter’s voice is sort of,
well, kinda sounds cooler.

It’s like watching a movie, all fine and dandy.. and then suddenly the
person on screen turns into like a fantasy character like Gandalf or
something and whoosh, ‘welcome to a brand new world’. sorry for the
dramatics, but it’s just to emphasize the point that I really did feel
disorientated.

Decor

I can hear my friends’ voice sort of coming from in front of me. Never
really noticed she had such a sexy, smouldering voice. At this point, our
waiter starts telling us where the cutlery is and he tells me that he has
placed a bottle of water in front of me. So I reach out and start feeling
for a bottle.

As my hand runs across the table, I start feeling edges, the creaks, the
stuff on it and the wood. I begin to imagine what the decor would look
like, I notice the creaking floorboards, so I can only assume the wooden
floors as well. My perception of the space starts to take on a life of its
own as my imagination starts going wild. All the subtle background noises,
like tapping shoes, clicking heels, the chatter suddenly become part of
the decor and in my mind, that information kind of helped to build an
image of the space, almost abit like the way you build up a scene in your
head while you are reading a book.

What an interesting experience! At this point, I also started to notice
the music, a spanish guitar in the background and someone singing in
spanish. Without really trying, I could really feel my hearing slowly
getting more astute, even though at this point, my head was still spinning
a little but I was slowly adapting to the change.

Thumb in glass

Finally I found the bottle. It seems my mate had since adjusted to the
changes long before I did. In order to measure how much to pour, the
waiter instructed us to stick our finger in the glass to get to the
satisfactory level. At first this simple task seemed so daunting, but
eventually, I got used to it and got into the swing of things.

Starting to eat blind

The starters arrived and the waiter tells me where he is and which
direction he’s going to serve me from and I have to reply so that he knows
where I am too. All throughout this time, I notice that we were all
talking alot more to maintain that connection with the people around us,
abit like a mass conference call, except the person is actually right in
front of you.

Anyway, the starters were what I can describe as four parcels of food. Oh,
I did try with cutlery at first but all I kept doing was stab either the
table or the plate. So I ditched that and proceded to use my fingers to
feel the plate for what ever was on it. So the first one felt gooey and
moist. Two of them felt dry, like it’s been deep fried. And the last one
had a gooey middle bit, encrusted in pastry.

I try each one in succession. The first one definitely was some sort of
stuffed ravioli.. I wasn’t really sure what was inside, pumpkin maybe? And
another meat. venison? The smell was quite strong, but I couldn’t seem to
place it at all. The same went for the rest of the other starters, I kind
of knew, but at the same time, didn’t really know what I was scoffing.

At this point, I think I was still very concious of the fact that I was
eating blind.

Strong smell Mains

I must say, everything smells so much stronger. To the point where some of
the food, was abit overpowering. That mains is definitely lamb. Lamb in a
thick sauce with lentil beans I believe it is. The lamb smell was so
strong that it kind of stank a little. And it was abit on the spicy side
too. I really did try to use my cutlery, but in the end I was just using
my hands to pick the food up. I didn’t really know if I managed to finish
everything on my plate, but I did poke around just to make sure.

Phew, I think I survived that. The jarring feeling of not being able to
see has kind of left me now and I was feeling more comfortable relying on
the remaining senses. I was also reaching out to try and poke my friend. I
think I got her in the eye a couple of times.

Dessert and back to the light

Oh yeah, dessert was pleasant. It tasted like chocolate mousse, but it was
really grainy instead of a smooth texture. You know, this was fun,
definitely an experience, but I’m really ready to head back to the light
again.

Hand back on the waiter’s broad shoulders and before long that faint speck
of light in the distance, slowly got brighter and brighter.

Wow, I felt like I was transported into another world altogether. At the
reception area, I was glad to sort of get back to reality, yet at the same
time, my mind couldn’t help but playback the experience I had in the dark
room. At times, it was jarring, when eating it was abit challenging
(especially when I was trying to nick my mate’s food from her plate) and I
noticed chatter and noise can actually be rather interesting things to
tune into.

In terms of discovering the ‘truth of food’, I must admit the food is full
of pretty distinctly contrasting flavours, which i could easily separate
out, but I found it really hard to identify what it was. When we were
shown the menu at the end, some of our guesses were right and some weren’t.
I did notice that alot of more unidentifiable ingredients were used for
each dish.. but I could only discern the major ones. (ie, stinky lamb)

Is it worth it?

Well, 2 courses start from £32 and 3 courses can be had at £38. This does
not include drinks or service so it’s alittle on the pricy side. However,
something like this, you really go for the experience and not just the
food alone. Jay Rayner kind of panned the food during his visit, but I
actually thought the food was alright. Although, I must say, I was so
distracted by the fact that I couldn’t see it, my mind just didnt really
concentrate on whether it was actually spot-on cooking or not.

You only live once and you’ve got to try this out if you’ve not already
done so. An experience, you’re unlikely to forget.

Dan le Noir
31-33 Clerkenwell Green
EC1R 0DU
Tel: 020 7253 1100

http://www.danslenoir.com/london/

_____ Kang Leong ______