I know of at least one restaurant near me that is like the Dunkelrestaurant (Dark Restaurant) that we ate at a couple of weeks ago. Just like one near me, the Unsicht Bar (Invisible Bar) focuses on serving a meal that really pushes your sensory experiences by forcing you to eat your meal in the dark.
It’s a bit like this:
You first sit down in the bar to choose what sort of meal you would like. They cater extremely well for vegetarians, fish lovers or just down right meat eaters. However not to spoil the fun, you get to choose dishes like a soup, “A greek with many names loves to bathe and be seduced by the Asian beauty whose taste is very fine indeed”, or an appetiser “Tender American girls cuddle up against Italian hunks against a green backdrop” so you really don’t know what you’re eating.
Of course, normally this is where I’d share all the photos of the food but obviously it would ruin the experience. Instead you’ll have to imagine what it’s like.
Firstly, our waiter introduced himself. He was, I think, half blind and got us to follow him to the edge of the dining room. Forming effectively a human congo line, though hands on shoulders rather than hips, he walked us through a winding passage way where the bright room gave way to a black void filled with interesting sounds. We could hear tables talking fairly loudly and only got a sense of what the room was like by where all the sounds of the people came from.
Not able to fully focus on the wall as our waiter moved quickly, we suddenly stopped at our table where he told us to stand still as he guided each of us to our chair and sat us down. He asked us to feel where everything was on the table, and using our hands, delicately pushed things around to rediscovery the feel of what would normally be on the table. A good thing our wine glasses were shorter and smaller than normal ones that we’d be more likely to knock over.
Instructed to alert him (how we have no idea) if we needed something, he dropped off some water and wine before whisking away to serve several other tables. At first, it was mighty awkward. Using fingers to guide the neck of the bottle to the glasses and another inserted to sense the overflow, I was amazed to see how we had to adapt.
Our first dish soon arrived and recommended by our waiter to use our hands, decided to poke around on the plate. Michael and I decided to have the beef menu, whilst another Patrick (Pat D) had the poultry. Michael and I had fun trying to guess what we had, and discovering different things on our plates at different times. It was actually a really great event that really got us focused on the different delights of the food we had to eat. Ours ending up being a slice of roast beef, with anti-pasti and salad. Full of flavour and really well cooked.
Our main was quite entertaining, because we knew we had a bit of beef coming and using a knife and fork to cut it proved difficult for the entire meal. Cutting it wasn’t too bad. What was hard was finding out that the fork you had came back empty, or with a chunk far too big to eat without even realising it. Deliciously made though.
Dessert was perfect as well, a white chocolate mousse of some sort with some berry compote or the like.
An awesome experience and definitely well worth going for. In a way, we were also pretty lucky we didn’t get the fourth course, a soup option that I can imagine simple spilling everywhere.
Name: Unsicht Bar Berlin
Website: http://unsicht-bar-berlin.de
Found at: Gormannstraße 14