Dining in the Dark

The Bar Willow offers a unique dining experience a few times a year. It’s called Dining in the Dark. You may have heard of it. If you haven’t it’s exactly what the title says. You eat in the D A R K. Like I-can’t-see my-hand-in-front-of-my-face dark. Cool? Yeah, man. Totally.

Arriving

I made a reservation. There was really nothing else to do as the menu was already created by the chef—four mysterious courses. The night was pretty enough, with sleet-type snow falling from the sky. The restaurant is in the park overlooking our lake and Legislative Building. Generally, it’s a scenic view and a lovely setting. However, this evening the view didn’t matter. What I wore didn’t matter either. No one could see any of it.

A woman waited outside with her coat on to confirm our reservation. She took us inside. The front entrance was illuminated by a soft light so we could see where our coats would go. It was also a transition from the street lights of the evening to the pitch black of the space we were eating in. Pitch black.

The woman instructed. “I’m going to take your hand and guide you in. And you can grab her hand.” I put my hand in hers and Cathy took my arm and we trustingly shuffled along. Because I am a strongly visual person my eyes darted here and there in the dark. All I saw were small bits of glow tape, the kind that I’ve used on stage when I directed theatre. There were lots of bits of glow tape and no edges beyond. Honestly, it felt like I was floating out into space. Just stars. My hand. Her hand. Cathy’s hand.

We arrived at our table and were given instructions on where our seats were and how to sit down without hurting ourselves. Every action was done slowly with an awareness of only the surroundings at arm’s length. I sat with my back to the wall and continued to watch the “stars.” I thought my eyes would adjust to the dark, that I would eventually see dim edges of something, but no. The room stayed pitch black.

Once settled and all the guests had arrived we were given instructions on how the evening would play out. I won’t go into much detail so as to not wreck it if you choose to attend but I was impressed with all the considerations they gave the experience and the safety of their patrons.

The food

The food came out a course at a time. Chef had added a fun feature. Each dish had a colour theme. A bit ironic considering we couldn’t see it. We had to taste it and guess what the color was. Ask yourself what you think purple tastes like, or, yellow, or red. So very interesting. Again I’m going to leave the details of the dishes out and just tell you that they were all delicious. The colors were green, orange, red and purple. When I was done I was stuffed! There was a care in taking the dishes from the server but consuming the food was less than elegant. I was hunched over as to not get food bits on my lap. I man-handled some of the meal. I had to make sure that I got everything on my plate! I was raised right! All plates went back to the kitchen sans scraps!

Funny moments

During our visit, Cathy had asked me a question and I took a moment to ponder my answer. In the silence, Cathy asked, “Ang, are you there?” This is where the side-splitting laughter happened. That’s just how dark it was! She had to confirm that I hadn’t snuck out of there between courses. Like I’d leave!

One of our instructions was that if we needed to go to the washroom we would be escorted by the server and of course, at one point the guest next to us did have to go. When she was brought back to the table the man she was dining with asked if he got the correct lady? We all laughed.

Recommend

Do I recommend this experience? Yes. It was pretty magical. It forced me to be aware of my environment in a different way. It put me in a position to enjoy my food differently. It also created an interesting space to talk in. Funny how brave the dark can make us and how focused we can get on the nuances of voice and pauses when there are no facial expressions to fall back on.

I recommend this type of dining experience if you are local and have a chance to go. Or, if you have something similar in the city you live in, attend. It’s different but it’s something you’ll remember.

As always, thank you for reading Lovelies.

_{**The photo was taken very quickly as we were rushing in. It’s crooked. Sorry.}