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Dining in the dark trend hits Canada: restaurants sans light, blind waiters in Montréal, QC, Toronto, ON.

Latest culinary frontier: food you can’t see. Stop in at O. NOIR, stimulate your sensory appetite.

by Susan Musgrave 29 November 2010

This restaurant’s motto is: “It’s Better in the Dark.” Intrigued? The cutting-edge city of Montréal, QC, has been stimulating people’s sensory appetites since the opening of an innovative new concept restaurant called O. NOIR. And now in Toronto, ON, you can have the same culinary adventure. Not even a hint of any ambient candlelight here, and no cheating: check your cellphones, cigarette lighters and glow-in-the-dark watches in the lit bar area before being shown to your table and waited upon by a team of blind and visually impaired wait staff, also referred to as “guides.”
“Blind dining” was the brainchild of the Reverend Jorge Spielmann, who opened blindekuh (German for “blind cow”) in Zurich (Switzerland) in 1999. His goal was to teach the sighted about the sightless: after sitting through a whole meal in darkness, people would learn how taste and smell are heightened and conversations more focused when there are no visual distractions.
Don’t worry, O.NOIR’s menu takes into consideration the diner’s limited ability to handle cutlery when there is zero light. No steak with T-bones to be negotiated; O.NOIR serves filet mignon instead. At the risk of putting me in the category of those who grasp whatever light they can find in life, I’d opt for the grilled octopus. The trace amount of phosphorus in whitefish is known to emit a faint glow.
www.ontariotravel.net
www.bonjourquebec.com
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Usage guidelines

We welcome you to use these story ideas as inspiration for your own stories about Canada. The CTC owns all rights worldwide. (Our images are also royalty-free and available for editorial print, broadcast and electronic use.) If you choose to reproduce these texts for editorial use only, please include the author's byline and "courtesy of the Canadian Tourism Commission." If you cut, edit or modify the text in any way, please include this note: "The text has been modified from the original." Thank you.

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Prince Edward Island, Credit - Mandatory Tourism PEI/John Sylvester - Background Image