Whether it’s a new chef in Chelsea or a new discovery in Koreatown, we make it a point to get a first-hand taste. Yet oddly, for all our escapades in eating, Andy and I never considered trying out the “Dining in the Dark” experience when it opened three years ago in L.A., with its servers from the Braille Institute, or even when it started popping up nearly a decade ago in other foreign cities we trekked through.
Consider it experienced.
Last night, in utter, complete, inky darkness, we reached out for one another, fumbled for our cocktails, picked up mac n cheese with our fingers and stuck tiramisu up the other’s nose. It was unsettling at times. It teetered on the absurd at one moment, then even sexy at another. It was, actually, kind of fun.
Some two-dozen kindred spirits shared in the pitch-black dinner in birthday honor of our friend-in-common, Bettina Hubby. Phrases like “force of nature” were invented for individuals like The Hubby, a visual artist and fashion deconstructionist who we’ve had the joy of getting to know since she first popped into our Silverlake A+R. It was her crazy idea to get all of to this Hyatt in West Hollywood for a night of sight deprivation.
Cell phones, glowing wristwatches and anything else that can break the blackness must be put away before entering the room. We were then lead by the blind, literally, to our chairs. The blind and visually impaired staff serve everything we pre-requested before dinner in the brightly lit lounge.
The food didn’t suck, and we all privately realized at one point that we could do all sorts of things in the dark that we wouldn’t dare under the glow in other restaurants: Rip into a steak held without the use of silverware, rest our face in our hands with both elbows on the table, grope our neighbor above table top.
The “dark dining” concept originated with Jorge Spielmann, a blind minister from Zurich, who would blindfold friends during dinner so they could better relate to his experience. Spielmann opened Blindekuh (Blind Cow, or the German name for Blind man’s bluff) in 1999. It boasts the world's first visually impaired wait staff. Since then, the experience has spread around the world, including a growing chain in Asia called Dark Restaurants-where sighted waiters wear night-vision goggles (cheating, really). And in California there’s the Opaque group’s events in L.A. and San Diego, with plans to expand soon to San Francisco. But the party ends in L.A. on May as the current home undergoes renovations, unless the organizers can find a new venue. Let's hope they do.