In the Dark at (& About) O.Noir

Let’s be perfectly honest: many of us choose a restaurant to see and be seen. We work out our attire in advance, based on what we’ve heard of the atmosphere and our suspicions of the type of folks who will be dining amongst us. So what happens when one is invited to eat in pitch darkness?

The first thought that comes to mind when we accept an invitation to Montreal’s O.Noir restaurant is to wear machine washable black clothing. At O.Noir blind waiters staff a dining room so dark no one can see the table, the cutlery, wine or water glasses, or one’s dinner companions. We are dining with a very large group that has been divided into several tables of about eight. After having a drink at the bar, where the light is flatteringly dim and seeing bar staff expertly mix drinks, we are lined up at a door marked Entrée and told the name of our server. I am very bad with remembering names – I am much better with faces but of course, this skill is rendered useless -- and my deficiency plagues me later on. All in a line, we each put our left hand on the left shoulder of the person in front of us and follow the conga line into the dining room. We walk through the door and then through a set of heavy black curtains. After that, we see nothing.

At the table, we are told to feel for a chair somewhere in front of us, and sure enough I find one but I also find that the Reluctant Chef is trying to get into same. It’s like musical chairs and I’m the odd one out. I push him aside (hey, no one can see!) and tell him to move one over. We sit. We feel for our place setting: a place mat, a napkin, a knife and ….no fork! I panic. I cannot see the waiter. I cannot call him because of course, I can’t remember his name, but also I feel like an idiot yelling at the top of my feeble little lungs in front of all our dinner companions. Thankfully, he arrives and I am able to tell him that I don’t have the requisite cutlery. No problem. He brings it over to me. The waiter gently taps my shoulder and tells me he has a fork. He passes it very close to me – I can feel the movement of his arm – and I blindly (yes, literally) take it from him. It’s odd to take an object from someone when you cannot see it but the method becomes a familiar and comfortable routine. What remains disconcerting is the inability to call a waiter over to our table. One must wait patiently until he arrives at regular intervals.

The noise level is not just amplified by our senses; it truly is much louder than at a properly lit restaurant. I notice that people are practically yelling at each other. The darkness fools them into feeling invisible; they must raise their voices to be present. In fact, Reluctant Chef tells me later that he carried on a conversation with his right-hand dinner companion with their faces literally inches away from each other. He only realized this when someone at another table took a photo and the flash lit up the entire room. In fact, throughout dinner, the diner to my left is leaning in closer and closer to talk to me. He has moved so far from the center of his place setting that he is now drinking my wine. Oops! He gesticulates and there goes my water glass. It seems like a hassle to call the waiter and get a replacement.

It is not impossible to eat without seeing one’s plate, however we end up spearing our plates with complete abandon and coming up empty half the time. I recognize a full fork when the weight changes and each time, think “Aha! Success!”

Now for the food: in one word, unremarkable. I’m truly sorry to write this. The menu is simple enough: Portobello mushrooms, avocado salad, grilled vegetables with chèvre as appetizers; listed mains are filet, chicken breast, marinated shrimp with risotto, haloumi with roasted peppers. In my opinion, these dishes are not esoteric or tantalizing. The one interesting appetizer is octopus, which is very nicely prepared. One of our dinner companions reports the grilled veg is as expected. I order the “surprise” appetizer and surprise main. I hope that this will be some culinary tour de force, but it turns out to be smoked salmon that is a bit past its prime and lamb chops (overcooked) with very tasty green beans and potatoes diced in neat cubes but that are overcooked and fall apart and through my fork tines. Everyone, it seems, has the same sides. I am surprised because the filet, which is apparently grilled just fine according to my dinner companions, and served with a nice peppercorn sauce, is supposed to be served with asparagus. Chicken is to be served with zucchini. Did they run out? No explanations are forthcoming. I admit that serving a large group is difficult, but either everyone chooses à la carte or we get a ‘group menu’. (I would like to state here that some may think I am being unusually cruel about a restaurants ability to cater to large groups; in fact, I have had good meals with equally large groups, including the fabulous George in Toronto.)

Dessert is also unremarkable: the chocolate cake is disappointingly dry, the mousse with raspberry sauce is just passable and the lemon sorbet with pineapple chunks is as advertised but not exceptional. I once read a comment by the restaurant’s general manager that when the senses are heightened, simple food tastes divine. Perhaps this should be true; alas, neither I, nor any of my dinner companions feel any sort of zing or pop with the flavours of our meal.

Overall, we enjoy our time at O.Noir, mostly due to the company and the friendly wait staff. I am left ‘in the dark’ as to why anyone would return a second time, except perhaps to humble oneself when the character demands it. But the experience is unique. We learn what it must be like to be blind, and we learn how insidious prejudices develop against the blind. I hope that each of us walked out of O Noir with the understanding that yes, it truly is awful to be blind, but blind people are highly functioning. Sure, they do things a bit differently, but because of their heightened senses, they may perceive our foibles and character flaws much more effectively than others, who see the masks we all wear.