Dining in the dark. Dining in the complete dark. Soooo much easier than it sounds.

Approaching Dans Le Noir? you walk into what looks like a bar from the outside. Opening the door what greets you is vast area of open space (no seats or anything much) and a small bar at the back. You are probably supposed to be greeted immediately to guide you through your experience however our member of staff took a few minutes to get to us. There are about five or so Dans Le Noir? staff floating around who are there to basically check your booking, explain how Dans Le Noir? works, ask you to choose a menu (2 or 3 courses from either a meat, seafood, veg or chef surprise menue) and then either direct you to the bar if you want a drink before going in or hand you over to a blind waiter who will bring you in to the restaurant.

Just note that at this stage there seems to be quite a lot of pressure to buy drinks from the bar or to upgrade to one of the packages which includes drinks.

To be honest we were a bit confused by our greeter. We said we happy to sit down immediately for our meal and just go with tap water. But he kind of just directed us to the bar and left us hanging. We weren’t really sure what we were supposed to do. We must have looked helpless as another guy, I think the manager, saw our confused faces and asked us if we were ready for our meal.

Inside it is pitch black. And by pitch black I mean not an ounce of light. I really thought that there would be some sort of dim lighting. A silly thought I know as clearly they are trying to replicate a blind person’s environment and blind people will have no perception of light at all. In aid of this they get you to put all your belongings in a locker so this stops people with their mobile cameras, normal cameras and also to give you comfort that your precious valuables are not being spirited away. Slightly irritatingly the guy next to us had a watch that flashed every 30 minutes or so. In the pitch black darkness this was actually quite distracting. Otherwise it was a total visual sensory depravation.

Its amazing to realize just how much I rely on my vision to move smoothly, to eat, to drink, to bob out of people’s way if you can see they’re on a collision course for you and to even speak. It was bizarre to hear Rehana’s voice “appearing” out of the dark and actually it “felt” like it was coming from somewhere higher than I thought. However, although your sense of hearing is intensified it was also it was a bit difficult to speak because it was very noisy in there – not sure if people were shouting to be heard over each other or shouting because they couldn’t see – but everyone was definitely speaking louder than necessary. The waiters working the restaurant must like it because unless they said something near you – you could never get their attention unless you shouted their name and hoped they were in the vicinity of your table! As a result they probably get pestered less than in a normal restaurant.

Tables are practically communal. I’m curious just how large the room is – you never rally find out. At least we were at the end of the table so only had to deal with jostling from one side. We seemed really close is all I could tell.. There was also the danger that your neighbours might drink your drink! Further, Rehana seemed to have a problem with wait staff continually knocking into her or her chair though my position wasn’t nearly so exposed. A few times our water touch my shoulder or felt my side just to check my position and I got a few brush by’s but no one really knocking into me.

So, food-wise what did I think? To be honest except for a couple of dishes like the tortellini starter and our dessert combination the food wasn’t as stimulating to the taste as I expected. Food wasn’t served particularly hot to start with (probably to reduce the chances of someone burning themselves) and I think our flavours got seriously mixed up. Our starters of Grilled English asparagus and quail egg with crispy lardon and mixed cress selection and Gorgonzola and walnut tortellini with wild mushroom sauce was easy enough to separate but when we got to our mains, which ended up being three different type of game in three different styles of sauce, everything got mixed up. They change the menu regularly so I don’t think there’s a danger in disclosing what we had to eat: Crocodile stir-fry with soya sauce and fennel seeds, Oven roasted spring bok with apricot chutney and crispy pancetta, and Breasts of Guinea fowl with roasted vegetables and gravy.

The other thing the experience at Dans Le Noir? proved was that I clearly do not know a lot of my food – meat especially as I couldn’t even begin to have guessed what we were eating! The funniest part of the night was the fact that I ended up using my fingers to sweep my plate to ensure I’d finished as I lost count of how many times I picked up my fork to find nothing on it! Hope there was no one sitting around the room with night-vision glasses on!

To finish our desserts of Chocolate cups with marscapone, vanilla and red berries compote, Lemon Posset and Pear tartlets with citrus dressing were pretty divine. Again I had no clue what we were eating (except for the Lemon thing) – I’d even guess that the chocolate cups were coffee flavoured!

Ironically, not having bumped into anyone inside the restaurant, knocked anything off the table or spilled drinks/food on myself or anyone else, it was when we entered the lit entrance on exit when I finally ran into something. Bl**dy hurt my arm too! I blame it on the fact that I was blinking like a mole emerging from his hole at the time. At this time they show you a little folder with photos of the food you’ve supposedly just consumed. They really could have served you anything and you wouldn’t have known it (for example, I thought we’d eaten beef, some sort of bird, and potentially lamb!)

Overall, Dans Le Noir? is quite an expensive adventure but worth it for that one off experience. I’m still undecided whether I’d go again – there’s nothing like that first experience of a place like this and I’m sure second time round it might have lost some of the charm it would otherwise hold.