Have you ever imaged if one day you lose your eye sights, how would the world be then?

O.Noir, a restaurant located in Montreal, who provides a unique dinning experience in the dark.

(Picture from www.onoir.com)

Before I went to O.Noir, I was curious how our orders can be placed if we are unable to see the menu? The solution was quite simple customers choose their desired dishes before entering into the dark room. You can have either two or three course meal in O.Noir. The choices on the menu are filet mignon, shrimp sauté, lamb shank, and lastly a surprise dish! I was so delighted that a surprise dish was offered because I always have a lot of difficulty choosing my meals. With this option, I ordered all my dishes as surprise dishes (surprise starters, main course and desserts) with these choices; I will not have any reference to what my meals are and by doing so I can enjoy a better-unknown experience in the restaurant.

After ordering our dishes, a very nice waiter called Michael came to serve us. We need to put our hand on each other’s shoulder in order to not lose our way in the dark. When I entered the dark room, I was pretty excited and little bit nervous because I am was unable to see anything and even though I know I was in a safe environment. The dark room was pitch black, there were no visual references and your eyes are not able to adjust to the darkness. I have never been in such a dark room and my eyes were not able to adapt in this situation.

(Inside O.Noir)

I realised no matter how hard I try to use my eyes it was useless, I was still not able to grasp a sense of how the environment was with my sense of sight. In this situation started to use my other senses such as touch, hear, taste, smell, etc. to imagine how the surrounding was.

I tried to reach for my tableware by memory, remembering from the time when I felt everything around me. Once I got a rough idea what was in front of me, I started try and figure out who was sitting around me by talking with others and try to grasp the seating arrangements from the feedbacks or response and from the noise. Interestingly, I noticed how everyone seems more talkative with each other when they lost their sight.

Later, when our waiter Michael started to serve appetizers, those who ordered surprise appetizer started guessing what the appetizer was. We were so sure that the appetizer was some kind of seafood and I really thought it was a salad with some sashimi because of the taste and texture. Surprisingly, our surprise appetizer ended up to be tartar beef salad! Since then I started doubting my sense of taste… It is interesting to notice that people rely so much on their visual sense to judge what they are eating and ignore other information that comes from the food such as its textures and tastes.

Moreover, people seem to be excited being in the dark and continuously have conversations with each other. I remember, I was asked Hope if it was still raining outside and she said it felt like it was still raining outside because it smells damp. Her response made me realize how powerful our sense of smell was and the amount of information smell can provide us. Smell can give us not only the flavors of smell but also moisture and dryness.

Also, because of the darkness, guests rely so much on the waiters, which creates an interesting relationship between waiters, who are legally blind, and customers. It overturns the image that blind people need to be taking care of.

Eating at O.Noir gave us an opportunity to consider how to use our other senses to fulfil tasks such as figuring out the surroundings, how to eat without messing around, etc. and to be aware of how much information they provide aside from the visual sense. Overall, the experience in O.Noir is very unique and I strongly believe everyone should experience this restaurant at least once in the lifetime.