"I'm flicking you off right now," my friend says. "In fact, I'm flicking off everyone in the entire restaurant with both middle fingers."

Normally I would be shocked, horrified, or at minimum, embarrassed, but right now I'm too busy making faces at the waitress to care.  

Beside me, a couple exchanges lip-smacking kisses and across the room, a man with a booming voice announces to his date that he has just put his entire hand in "something gooey."

At Dans Le Noir, one of the many restaurants in Paris' fourth arrondisement, this kind of behavior is typical. Guests are expected to drop their food, stick their fingers in their drinks, and walk out wearing at least a small portion of their meal. That's just what happens when you eat in absolute darkness.  

Dans Le Noir is Paris' attempt at combining gastronomy and education. Patrons experience a two to three course meal in complete and total darkness, literally 'in the black' as the name translates. The overarching goal is to give guests a better understanding of what it is like to be blind, like the restaurants' entire wait staff.

Modesty along with cell phones, watches and anything else that can produce light are left in lockers in the lobby/bar area as guests wait to be led into a lightless abyss where cuisine and company are judged solely on their merits. Forget designer labels and candlelight dinners. At Dans Le Noir, black truly is the new black.  

Dans Le Noir is actually divided into three separate sections, only one of which is in darkness. Guests enter and place their orders in a lit lobby and downstairs, a lit lounge provides books, guest speakers, and a place to unwind after a dining dark. For the actual meal, guests choose whether they want two courses or three and if they want to know ahead of time what they're eating. Be warned, the Menu Surprise is only for the truly daring (and allergy-free) and could include anything from fish tartare to ostrich.  

Blind, and thankfully patient, dinner guides skillfully lead guests into the main 60-seater restaurant. Dark doesn't even begin to describe this place. The restaurant is completely lightless, a blackness so dense and so thick that there is no discernable difference between your eyes being open and closed.  

The reaction to spending two to three hours fumbling around in pitch darkness varies dramatically from person to person. Of the four of us, one became frustrated with the inability to feed himself, one feared he had actually gone blind, one fell asleep at the table, and one felt so liberated, she actually ate most of her appetizer without pants.

"You have no sense of place," my friend mutters, angrily searching for the bread basket. "You're the only one you know for a fact is here. Everything else could just be a TV set playing in the background." The pervading sense of being lost, of feeling utterly powerless, of stumbling through the world without direction, is what makes Dans Le Noir an invaluable pedagogical device. Every heightened sense, every awkward movement, every feeling of detachment is a tiny, concrete lesson in the art of sightless living. More than being a good restaurant, Dans Le Noir is a cultural bridge, promoting disability awareness through experiential education.  

By the end of the meal, we had all figured out how to pour water without spilling, how to use our noses to sense the general location of our food and how to feel the hands of other people in order to successfully pass the bread. We could identify most of the dishes by taste and texture and we guessed on the others.  

Bit by bit, we became more capable of functioning without our eyes as we slowly relearned how to eat. As we began to feel the smallest sense of self-satisfaction, we realized that this was just one meal in one restaurant. For our guide, there is an entire world outside of these walls to relearn one day at a time. Our guide appeared and we were led back into the lobby. We paid, left and wandered home, suddenly noticing the smell of Parisian streets in the afternoon. 

if you go

Dans Le Noir is located at 51 Rue Quincampoix, Metro station Hotel de Ville (line 1) or Rambateau (line 11) and can be reached online at http://www.danslenoir.fr/ for more information.

Menu prices range from 25 euros (two courses) to 35 (three courses) and dark room services run at 12:30PM, 8PM and 10PM every day (Sunday, 8PM service only). Call 011.33.1.42.77.98.04 or e-mail info@danslenoir.fr for reservations at least three days before your visit.

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