Dans le Noir

[Hallie]

Okay. So we're now meant to be preparing ourselves for the ultimate dining experience transplanted from Paris to Clerkenwell; sitting in the pitch dark while eating. Apparently the dark is meant to heighten our awareness of taste - but this begs the questions: what if the food is crap? Do I really want to taste it? How am I meant to find my plate - let alone the food on it? How do we pour the wine? And finally; should I bring a bib?

[camp_dick]

I noticed that Toby Young reviewed this place in the Standard magazine on Friday. I didn't read what the ignorant slaphead had to say about it (he makes me puke!) but you've got to figure that if La Maschler passes up the opportunity to have first say on a new restaurant, it can only be because she figures it's beneath her dignity.

[Clerkenwellian]

I noticed that Toby Young reviewed this place in the Standard magazine on Friday. I didn't read what the ignorant slaphead had to say about it (he makes me puke!) but you've got to figure that if La Maschler passes up the opportunity to have first say on a new restaurant, it can only be because she figures it's beneath her dignity.

←

It has already received a rare bad review from Square Meal and a stinker of a review from Marina O'Loughlin in the Standard. Oh, and a complete puff piece in the Guardian.

Toby Young's review is now on-line, and fairly bad.

[Punjuna]

Do the waiting staff wear night vision glasses or do they do they all eat lots of carrots perhaps?

[Hallie]

Do the waiting staff wear night vision glasses or do they do they all eat lots of carrots perhaps?

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Actually, they're blind. I'm not joking.

[algy]

Do the waiting staff wear night vision glasses or do they do they all eat lots of carrots perhaps?

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they're blind or visually impaired

[Champagne Sadie]

This place holds no appeal for me whatsoever.

Part of the dining experience for me is to take in my surrounds and see the food.

(I also refused to put on a blindfold at Fat Duck a few months back. )

[Punjuna]

I was about to say that the darkness thing is the same sort of concept as the headphones at the Fat Duck. However, this disturbs me slightly.

[culinary bear]

What next? Employing people with parkinsonism to shake cocktails?

It's a gimmick, but worse than that, it's a deeply patronising gimmick which will only serve to highlight the apartheid between able-bodied and disabled diners and worse, restaurant staff.

[Winot]

Dans le noir? Dans le merde.

[Culinista]

If the restaurant in Paris is any indication, it will be bad-and that is me being optimistic. Worst food I have ever had, blindfolded or not. The server was wonderful, however.

At least in Paris, they are more interested in their concept than in their cooking.

[circeplum]

but you've got to figure that if La Maschler passes up the opportunity to have first say on a new restaurant, it can only be because she figures it's beneath her dignity.

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er, she's away. currently being 'covered' by victor lewis smith.

[Jamsie]

but you've got to figure that if La Maschler passes up the opportunity to have first say on a new restaurant, it can only be because she figures it's beneath her dignity.

←

er, she's away. currently being 'covered' by victor lewis smith.

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God VLS is shite in the standard

He was shite in the guardian and is really shite again in the standard

His writing is so formulaic and dull for "funny" writer

Crap joke at start, shoe horned into linking it to piece, sprinkle in 3 or 4 really laboured similes/metaphors, along with a general feeling of "it'll fucking do" and file.

I swear he was actually good/interesting a long time ago but his restaurant and TV stuff is just dross these days

Edited March 14, 2006 by Jamsie (log)

[Tim Hayward]

being 'covered'  by victor lewis smith.

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Dear God what a repellent image.

[Tim Hayward]

London's way too cynical for something like this.

It'll end up like the Supper Club in Amsterdam - full of large groups of braying salarymen on corporate jollies and ghastly tourists in search of a packaged 'experience'.

My God, a minibus full of adventurous Danish retirees next to a table full of coked-up ad-agency vampires on a 'bonding' evening... in pitch blackness... with alcohol... surrounded by blind people, glass and hot food.

You don't need a bib, you need a sack of starved rats and a midget with a nightsight and a Taser......

Edited March 14, 2006 by Tim Hayward (log)

[Punjuna]

VLS in a darkened restaurant where nobody can see him!!!

Suddenly this restaurant does not sound so bad after all.

[Basildog]

VLS in a darkened restaurant where nobody can see him!!!

Suddenly this restaurant does not sound so bad after all.

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This is when you need the rats and the Taser

[Punjuna]

Bloody big rats at that

[Winot]

Okay. So we're now meant to be preparing ourselves for the ultimate dining experience transplanted from Paris to Clerkenwell; sitting in the pitch dark while eating. Apparently the dark is meant to heighten our awareness of taste - but this begs the questions: what if the food is crap? Do I really want to taste it? How am I meant to find my plate - let alone the food on it? How do we pour the wine? And finally; should I bring a bib?

←

I've found them a chef...

clickety

[Andy Lynes]

I've always said that a restaurant review by Jon Ronson would be worth reading. Click here for the first installment.

[culinary bear]

That's a restaurant review, albeit the first instalment? If it's the first of a two-parter, I'm bored shitless already.

[Andy Lynes]

It's Ronson's weekly column in the Guardian's Weekend magazine, not a restaurant review as such. Its the first thing I turn to; I think he's hilarious in a scary sort of way.

[camp_dick]

Ronson's weekly column in the Guardian's Weekend magazine,is the first thing I turn to; I think he's hilarious...

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Me too. He's about the only reason I buy the paper (apart from the TV guide).

That's a restaurant review, albeit the first instalment?

BTW, CB: Andy's link is to last week's episode, the first in what will be at least three parts. In today's, Jon distracts Elaine from rickshaws by making an interesting observation about discarded Lucozade bottles and hails a taxi to the restaurant, where you order your food in a well-lit bar before going to dine in pitch darkness. But, after twenty minutes they have yet to be presented with menus...

[culinary bear]

Ah, so I see.

Nope, still resolutely bored shitless. Ronson has his moments, I'll grant you that. This isn't one of them.

[Andy Lynes]

I disagree, I think this is one of his moments - at least on a par with his late night "Tall Structures" panel discussion programme he made a few years back. Fascinating stuff.