Eyes half shuttered and head slightly tilted, Tony Boibelet crosses the restaurant lobby, clinging to an arm leading the way. Four big seeing-eye dogs are lying asleep in a heap on the lobby floor.
But once inside the blacked-out restaurant, the tables are turned. Boibelet, a slight dark-haired man in his early 30s, becomes the guide, the host and general human comforter for customers suddenly bereft of the faculty of sight.
Newly-opened this month, and the first of its sort in Paris, the “Dans Le Noir?” (“In The Dark?”) Restaurant has seven blind people waitering on 55 diners in total darkness, the blind literally leading the blind.
Eyes wide open or eyes wide shut, an about-to-be table of five take off one after the other from the lit-up lobby in Indian file, timidly setting out into a big black void, the first person clutching Boibelet’s shoulder, the second person hanging onto the first, and so on. You can sense the build-up of fear, and only the reassuring sound of Boibelet’s voice keeps a lid on the nervous tension. “See what it’s like in the dark?” he laughs.
“Here, we’re on an equal footing with other people,” he said in an interview. “And for once we can hold a hand out to others.”
Similar establishments have been opened in Zurich and Berlin, and over the past few years experiences involving the sensation of darkness have been staged at arts and theatre festivals and happenings. “We hope the restaurant will serve as a bridge between people who can see and people who can’t,” said Fabrice Roszczka, who works for one of the organisers, the Paul Guinot association that since World War I has helped France’s blind and visually-handicapped.
It took months to completely black out the place and even longer to obtain the required permits, given that there are no emergency exit lights for example, Roszczka told AFP.
Customers are asked to leave cell-phones outside and remove watches and any other sources of light. Lockers are provided for purses and bags. Cigarettes obviously are banned.
Like Boibelet, a marathon runner who was trained to work on computers but has not had a proper job for years, 37-year-old Olivia Phortner sees the restaurant as finally offering not just employment but the prospect of job satisfaction as well.
“This job is more than just being a waitress, there’s a whole psychological side to it - helping people relax and enjoy themselves in the dark, and explore new sensations.”
The organisers believe the lack of visual contact with what is on a person’s plate can give entirely new meaning to food and to the sensation of eating. afp <>
