By Patrick Hedlund
DNAinfo News Editor
LOWER EAST SIDE — New Yorkers are known for dining long after the sun goes down, but now a restaurant wants to give them the chance to eat in complete darkness.
Dans Le Noir, an international restaurant chain with outposts in Paris, London, Moscow and Barcelona, unveiled its plan this week to introduce pitch-black dining, using blind waitstaff, to the Lower East Side.
“It’s an experience — sensory, social and human,” said Dans Le Noir project manager Celine Djezvedjian, noting that the restaurant is also considering spaces in Midtown and that it hopes to have a deal finalized by the end of the month. “We are used to using our eyes and our nose and our palate. People eat with their eyes.”
Dans Le Noir — which is French for “In the Black” — employs blind “guides” to help customers navigate the unorthodox eating experience, counting 40 percent of its staff as vision-impaired.
The restaurant partners with citywide organizations to hire locally, and also donates 10 percent of its profits to charitable groups, Djezvedjian said.
“Basically we want to show that you can be ethical, and we want to show that difference creates value,” she said, noting that the concept also seeks to help raise awareness about people with disabilities.
A typical meal at Dans Le Noir consists of the waitstaff leading diners into a dark room, teaching them how to use their utensils in the dark, and then presenting patrons with a surprise menu so they have to guess what they’re eating.
A scene in the romantic comedy "When in Rome" poked fun at the concept.
In the past, diners have been surprised to learn that they enjoyed a meal they previously never would have considered eating, Djezvedjian added.
The restaurant pitched the idea to Community Board 3 on Monday in its bid for a liquor license, earning approval from members who liked the idea of employing vision-impaired staff.
“From that perspective it’s very novel, because we have a community that has a population of handicapped residents,” said Alexandra Militano, chair of the CB 3 committee that overseas liquor license applications. “It’s great that there would be a business that would actually seek to train and employ people that might have difficulty getting jobs at other places.”
Beyond that, Djezvedjian said that diners respond to the experience in interesting ways.
“They talk to everyone, and they actually talk on a very different level,” she said. “It’s a social experience, but very different from our society because we judge a lot with their eyes.”
New York City has proved to be the most difficult city to open in, Djezvedjian said, because of the special authorizations needed to execute such a bizarre concept.
Location-wise, the Lower East Side would be the perfect fit because of the neighborhood’s diversity, she added.
“It’s easy to go [to] for different people from everywhere, and you can welcome different crowds,” she said of the Norfolk Street location. “We don’t do a very chic restaurant or a very bohemian restaurant because we want all types of people. We want every kind of crowd to go.”
