By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
TRIBECA — A Parisian restaurant chain that features pitch-black dining is planning to open in TriBeCa early next year.
Called Dans le Noir?, the restaurant will employ blind servers to help diners navigate a surprise menu, offering an unorthodox sensory experience.
The venue will be the current Lafayette Grill space at 54 Franklin St., which Dans le Noir? hopes to turn into an epicurean cave by March. The restaurant previously considered locations on the Lower East Side and in Midtown.
Project manager Celine Djezvedjian offered new details about the restaurant at a Community Board 1 meeting Wednesday night, including that the menu will be a $65 prix fixe, and that guests will be limited to half a bottle of wine apiece, the blog Tribeca Citizen reported.
Only diners ages 15 and up will be allowed, and everyone will have to check their cell phones and any other lighted gadgets at the door. In case of an emergency, exit signs and house lights will be turned on at the touch of a "panic button," Tribeca Citizen reported.
Dans le Noir? will cater to tourists and corporate groups in addition to the local blind and seeing community, the managers told CB1.
"It’s an experience — sensory, social and human," Djezvedjian told DNAinfo in August. "We are used to using our eyes and our nose and our palate. People eat with their eyes."
The restaurant will hire locally and donate 10 percent of its profits to charity, Djezvedjian said.
CB1’s TriBeCa Committee offered advisory approval of the restaurant’s liquor license at Wednesday night’s meeting.
"It’s an interesting concept," said Marc Ameruso, a TriBeCa resident and CB1 member, after hearing about the plans at the meeting. "It’s certainly unique."
Ameruso said he thinks locals will go to the restaurant once just to try it, but unless the food is exceptional, they likely won’t return.
"If you’re sighted, I don’t know why you would want to eat in the dark," Ameruso said.
