Examples

Dans Le Noir:

Guests are led to a pitch-black dining room and served food that they cannot see. They are guided by blind waiters. Many supporters include charities for the blind, who believe that it will open up other senses and liberate their tastebuds.

Edouard de Broglie, the man behind the British venture after launching the Paris restaurant, said his interest was in the sensory, not the social aspect of dining.

"The preconception of what food tastes like because of how it looks is gone," he said. "All your other senses are abruptly awoken and you taste the food like you have never tasted it before."


Yet Dans le Noir, which opened in Paris more than a year ago, remains packed most nights, serving three courses for £39 per person, without wine. The Independent on Sunday visited it last week to discover what the attraction of eating under cover of darkness is.

We made our choices from the menu before shuffling into the blacked-out room in single file, hands placed on the shoulder of the person in front. Immediately, the world felt both infinite and claustrophobic, as we found our seats. But with a gentle reassuring touch, the waiter, Benoit, explained that there was a napkin, knife and fork and an unbreakable glass on the table. Then he disappeared.

You cannot signal your waiter, but calling his name brings him to back to your side. Soon, the food arrived. With our hands, we discovered that the vegetables and scallops had been neatly presented, which all seemed rather pointless.

The pudding - chocolate fondant and ice-cream, apparently - left us perplexed. It could have been anything mousse-like. Our tastebuds may well have been aroused, but they were confused. After an hour and a half, we were desperate to return to the people and colours outside.

But the owners of Dans le Noir are confident that it will be a huge success in the UK. And it has already won praise from the Royal National Institute for the Blind and Action for Blind People for creating jobs for the blind.

The chef, his team of three, and a handful of front-of-house staff can see. But the 10 waiters are all officially registered blind, and have been subjected to a rigorous training regime.

Nicolas Chartier, project manager of the London branch, insisted that diners would have nothing to fear from blind waiters carrying hot dishes.

"It may seem, at first, a recipe for disaster, but the waiters are highly skilled," he said. He added that diners would learn about life as a blind person. "The waiters show us what it is like to experience their world," he said.

"When you cannot see, you depend on the waiter to guide you, so a special relationship develops between customers and the blind. It makes you rethink everything."