Dining in the Dark

Have you eaten in total darkness?  Would you know were to sit? and how to look for the utensils as well as for the water and wine glasses when there is a total absence of light? Well the idea of this restaurant is not exactly the novelty of eating in the dark but moreso on taking out one of your senses, the sense of sight. Meaning you have to appreciate the food mostly by its taste, its flavor and its consistency. In street speak  it means you have to like the food by its taste and not how it looks like.

Local friends in Dubai, Rose and Syed invited me to go to this restaurant and it indeed piqued my interest because it was so different. It was something I have never ever heard of and I had no idea how you can eat properly without seeing your food.

The Restaurant is called Noire Restaurant and it is one of the restaurants of Fairmont Hotel Dubai.

And like everything in Dubai nothing is cheap. It is around AED 325 per person (around 88USD in todays exchange rate) and it has a three course menu paired with beverages. They do ask you beforehand if you have any allergies and what food you cannot eat. They also explain to you what is going to happen although they do not tell you what the menu consists of.  Right after the short orientation we were then led to our table escorted by servers wearing night vision goggles and made sure that we were seated properly. The room is totally dark and even if we were not blindfolded you literally cannot see anything.

Check out one of our two servers.

And this is the view from the night vision goggles…

Once seated, the servers orient you where the water and wine glasses are, and of course, also where the fork, the spoon, etc are. Also, while eating they do let you know if you left some food in one section of the plate and they guide you towards that. Of course, I believe they prepare and choose the menus very well so that it adapts well to the “dark” environment and it is easier to eat the food without actually seeing it. After a few minutes it was very easy to adapt to the situation and by then we were enjoying our conversation and I was even appreciating the wines that were paired with the meal.

It was a great experience because you tend to depend on the people around you and great conversations come out of this dining event because remember no mobile phones are being used (no text, no Facebook, no whats app, no viber, no selfie no…lol) because they do not allow any light inside the restaurant. Also wrist watches that illuminate are kindly asked to be put in your pocket or bag so not to distract the “dining in the dark” experience.

After around 1 ½  hour dining experience, they then turn on the light, and they show you want you have eaten and discuss the featured menu with the chef and the restaurant manager.

In the photo below you can see the food that we have eaten and the chef explaining what it is etc – the two plates as well as the dessert plate.

I may say that the dishes were excellent and very delicious. The dessert was fantastic. During the meal, the main discussion was trying to guess what we were eating and we made a conclusion that we thought we had squid or some sort of a salmon for the first dish and then some sort of beef  or lamb for the main plate. We had two people with us who do not eat duck nor these “exotic” foods but in the end what we actually ate was Eel for the first dish and voila DUCK ! for the main plate. The big irony of it all was that the people who said they don’t like duck were the ones who were praising the main dish and even finishing all of it just for them to find out that it was all duck after all. They did love the food and I guess this is part of the experience. You cannot say you do not like anything unless you try it. In this restaurant it proves that people normally choose the food by their looks but taste is another matter.

A group photo with local residents Rose and Syed who introduced us to the Noire Restaurant

If you would like to see the official video in You Tube of The Restaurant NOIRE Dining in the Dark here is the link –  Noire. Dining in the Dark. Dubai.