The latest culinary trend to hit Montreal offers a new experience to restaurant aficionados. O Noir, a restaurant which opened Sept. 15 on St. Catherine St., allows patrons to dine in complete blackness.
Customers spend the evening in a dark dining room-no flashlights, matches, cell phones, cigarette lighters or luminous watches are allowed-to gain an understanding of what it’s like to be blind. In fact, the entire wait staff is visually impaired, yet more than capable of navigating about the room which seats up to fifty patrons.
When total darkness requires that diners enjoy their meal without their sense of sight, the role their other senses play in eating is heightened.
Further, they are immersed-for the duration of one meal, at least-in the world of the visually impaired. It is hoped that empathy will follow. O Noir’s owner and general manager, Moe Alameddine, hired a private investor to help him start the business. Alameddine has invested more than $200,000.
“I didn’t even go to a bank,” he said. “Everyone thought I was joking about this.”
O Noir’s entr
