“Matt, we had a bit of an accident with the wine.”
This weekend I had dinner at O.Noir in Montreal and it was an experience to say the least.
At O.Noir, you dine in complete darkness. I mean complete darkness. It isn’t dimly lit. Your eyes don’t eventually adjust. All you see is complete blackness for the entire time you’re there (2 hours). The idea is your other senses are heightened so you are able to experience the food in a different way. Also, I look good in complete darkness. 
How to the waiters manage in the dark? – they’re blind.
When we first walked in there was a bar/reception area with lockers where they asked us to put any jackets, purses, and cell phones. Anything that could get in the way or produce light. We then looked at the menu and ordered. I ordered three courses of “surprise” for myself.
Our waiter, Matt, then took us into the blacked out dining area by leading us in with one hand on his shoulder. It was very disorienting and kinda scary. Going there for dinner on Halloween would be a trip. I was expecting my eyes to adjust and be able to see something at some point but it never happened. Complete blackness. Matt had to describe to us how to find our water and wine glasses. You can guess where this is going but it actually worked out really well and the vast majority of people never have any problem. For us, the problem happened while we tried to share the last glass of wine to finish it off the bottle. Getting to the bathroom to clean up after the accident was a bit of a problem – we had to call the waiter over to guide us there.
The food was really good. My surprise appetizer I thought was a mushroom rigatoni. It turns out my appetizer was snails. My surprise main was a penne with marinara sauce and smoked salmon – I guessed that one correctly, and dessert was a tiramisu.
A very eye opening experience.
