What I find lacking in the people around me is the reticence they possess in being able to embrace their original nature, that of being a human who is as much a part of this earth as the drooling hyena or the careful raccoon. He may also be a part of the food chain, but that’s not my concern. So, when I want to sit down for dinner, I want to leave the table feeling I have feasted, feeling I deserved to have those things in my intestinal tract. I don’t want to sling a napkin over my lap and be careful not to spill. I don’t want to table manners dictating me to not talk. I want that last spoon of ice cream because I got to it first, not because you’re a girl. I am part animal, and I like it. I don’t want to lose those animal instincts. We think we’re not animals because we can think unlike those beasts in the jungle, but we’re now the most vicious of them all because we can think. When I point a Magnum at the sprinting blackbuck, I am just the hungry and lazy cheetah whose learnt to pull triggers. I don’t want to lie to myself and believe that I am a superior animal, which I can not be for that matter unless I manage to make my kind single-handedly extinct!
Which is why I like the ‘Dans le Noir?‘ (yes, the name comes with the ‘?’). Here’s why it’s special: you enter the restaurant and find that you’re expected to place all light-emitting objects with you, including cell phones, into a safe locker. Next, you pass through three rooms of pitch black darkness and equally dark drapes into a room that’s even more so dark you can’t see yourself however hard you try. Here, you’re placed at a table with other guests whose faces you will never see. The food is served to you by a blind waiter or waitress from an invisible menu, and you’ll never be able to tell what you’re eating unless you’re an experienced chef. With the dominant sense of your sight being subdued considerably, your other senses take over to deliver a sensational experience that also calls in intense moments of self-questioning. If you’re a racist bastard and believe in white superiority, you could very well be sitting next to a black guy; if you’re homophobic, you could very well be sitting in between a lesbian and a gay guy! At this point, wouldn’t you want to start talking? That’s how I’d like this world to be, and that’s why I consider this little a restaurant a brilliant social experiment that ridicules the follies of mankind while, at the same time, taking you on a gastronomic adventure that leaves much to be desired.
Clathration Therapy 