Dark Table's blind dining promises to turn dinner into a sensory treat

Calgary is about to get a dining experience unlike any other.

Starting Wednesday, it takes place at The Dark Table,the city's first permanent blind-dining restaurant.

For owner Moe Alameddine, who appeared on theCalgary Eyeopeneron Monday, diners shouldn't fret too much about not being able to see their meals.

Instead, they should revel in the way that losing the use of one sense enhances all the other ones.

"You don't eat with your eyes," said Alameddine,"you use your [sense of] smell,your taste. It's a completely unique dining experience."

Building a blind-dining empire

The Calgary restaurant will be the latest in a growing empire of blind-dining eateries forAlameddine, who first launched The Dark Table in Montreal in 2006.

Since then,Alameddinehasexpandedhis growing blind-dining empire to Toronto, Vancouverand now Calgary.

(While The Dark Table is a first for the city, theatre fans got a taste of the blind-dining experience in 2015, when Ghost River Theatre presentedTaste, a blindfolded meal that incorporated storytelling into the sensory enhancement, at the River Cafe as part of Beakerhead.)

Diners assisted by 'guide servers'

The blind-dining experience doesn't begin in darkness, explained Alameddine.

"You first come in andthe hostess will greet you in a lit area, a bar area," he said."They give you the menu. You choose the items on the menu andthen we'll call the server, whoare blind people who are going toserve you. We call them guide servers."

The guide servers provide logistical guidance for diners, leading them into the darkened dining room as well as taking them to the washroom and waiting to escort them back to their tables.

Servers also assist diners to where their knife and fork arelocated, and also help them locate their wine glass, so that there's no accidental spillage.

Oversized tables

If it all sounds like a food fiasco waiting to happen, Alameddine said that's not necessarily so.

"We give you enough space to move around," he said."It's not a tiny little table. The tables are pretty big, so you have enough space to move around your stuff."

While Dark Table patrons have the option of ordering their three-course meal at the bar prior to descending into darkness, Alameddinesays the option exists to experience a surprise meal.

"We actually have a very popular meal as a surprise dish," he said. "But you can have other dishes, so you can have steak, you can have chicken, you can have the vegetariandish. And you canhave surprise meal all the way drinks,food [if] they want togo all the way with the experience."

With files from theCalgary Eyeopener

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