Dining In the Dark

Well what can I say. My partner & I celebrated 5 years together on Tuesday night. We looked back on our favourite adventures from sky-diving, to caving, to mountain walking and holding our very first nieces and nephews. We graduated, we found our first jobs, and our second jobs and so on. We moved in to our own flat, saw theatre shows, ate LOTS of food, went to gigs and galleries - needless to say, it's been pretty great.

For about 3 years we've both been wanting to tick another experience off from our list. So on our 5th anniversary we made our way to Clerkenwell Green to dine in the dark at 'Dans Le Noir?'

Dinner in the Dark - ESN Aalto

Essentially, the deal is that you put all of your belongings in a locker, choose a vague menu (meat, vegetarian, surprise or fish) and then you enter a restaurant completely in darkness. You place your hand on the shoulder of your guide and are led to your seats by the blind waiters/waitresses that serve you throughout the evening. It was here we were introduced to Jack, who would be looking after us. I must say, at this point I didn't quite expect to need so much looking after.

Let me set the scene... (Imagine...)

The room is pitch black,
you can't see you surroundings,
nor your own hand in front of your face. 

You shuffle to your seats in tandem and feeling for your chair, you sit down gradually.
Jack tells you where to find your cutlery, glasses and napkin.
He advises that you wear the napkin.
He also explains that there is only one strict rule at the restaurant, and that is that you cannot leave your seat and try to navigate unaccompanied.
You agree that's probably a good policy. You laugh.
He then leaves.

As you adjust to your surroundings, Jack quickly returns with water and wine and a guiding voice.
He hands the bottle of water to your partner to pour the water for you both. (I wasn't planning on getting wet tonight I'll be honest).
Then Jack's voice vanishes again.
Your partner successfully pours your water, luckily not in the glass that contains your wine.
For a few moments you both talk idle chit chat, but you find it difficult.
You strain your ears to hear your dinner date but struggle to understand over the noise of others.
You reach out your hand across the table and feel around for his hand.
You seek reassurance that he's still there, somewhere in the darkness.

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Jack's voice appears again, and with it, your starters.
A meat dish for your date; 'kitten' says Jack, and a vegetarian dish for you, 'some leaves'.
Jack disappears again.
You let go of his hand, and immediately mourn it's loss from your fingertips. 
Your eyes are still trying to understand why they cannot see and it starts to make you queasy.
You shake it off, and fumble around for your knife and fork, and stab at the dish in front of you helplessly until it meets some resistance.
Sweeney Todd and Mrs Lovett's pies come to mind for some reason, but you shake your head and ignore the thought and shovel the mystery meal messily into your mouth anyway.
It was a crunchy texture, but softer in the middle. There was a sauce, and some seeds. And some salad. It's nice. You both comment on what you think you're eating.
You ask to try some of your partner's, and realise what a terrible idea that is.
He likes the challenge and brings his fork to your mouth and you guide his hand until you manage to grab the food from it with your teeth.
Mmmmm, you say. 'Kitten doesn't taste that bad'.
You laugh.
He says lamb. You think beef. Nice beef.
Your turn to try and feed, and never before have you realised how hard it is to put salad on a fork without your eyes to help you. 
You stab and scrape your dish a few times and, feeling the fork is heavier, your right hand (the steadier hand) begins it's journey across a never-ending table. He guides your hand and bites down on the fork. 
He manages to lap up a leaf. Nothing much more.
Good attempt. You laugh.
You both finish your starters and talk about how hard it is to do such simple things without your sight. Again you strain to listen but find it hard to separate his voice from the noise of the dining crowd around you.
You reach for his hand again. He's still there.

You are starting to feel slightly dizzy, as your eyes seem to panic at their lack of use. Your stomach is churning a gentle turn of anxiety. You decide to close your eyes and you feel a little better.
Your stomach groans again. You hold his hand a little firmer than before.
You take a swig of water, it tastes funny. You take another, that tastes funny too. 
You put your fingers in your drink to work out why it's so horrible, you realise then that the food you destined for your partner's mouth, had in fact lost itself in your water glass half way. That's why only a leaf was left at the other end.
You laugh. Your partner laughs.
Jack's reassuring voice reappears from the darkness, and asks if you're ready for your next course. 
You say yes, 'and a replacement water glass please!'
Jack clears the table and disappears.
You await his return.

Your attention turns again to feeling a little bit uneasy, a bit odd. A product of the noise, and the growing anger of your insides as they churn. You can't quite put your finger on what's bothering you. You try to forget about it, drink in your surroundings and allow yourself to be immersed. But 2mins of conversation ends with 5 of convincing yourself that you're ok. Disorientated, you await that calming and reassuring voice of Jack.
You wait.
You distract yourself by chatting wth your partner.
You hold his hand tighter still. 
You look in the direction of the exit, to see if there is light anywhere in the room but you see nothing.
You begin to bounce your leg up and down. You clutch a hand in your left hand and a glass of water in your right. To feel them in your fingertips offers reassurance in sensation. 
You breathe deeply. 
You open your eyes, and close them, you open them, and close them. You give up, there's no difference. But you keep them shut to help you feel less nauseous.
Jack's voice appears in the dark, thank god.
The main course is here.

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You get the point. I was gradually losing control of my mind, I was disorientated and I was beginning to panic. I managed to distract myself from it for brief moments, to taste my food or make a rubbish joke but it began to feel overwhelming. My conversation slowly petered out, and instead we sat there in relative silence. My stomach was forcing out nervous wind, and I felt sick. When Jack returned I asked if I could be escorted out to the toilet. My partner said it was ok for us to leave but I said I'd see if I felt ok in the toilet. He agreed. I shuffled back to the light of the corridor, squeezing Jack's shoulder as we went. as we reached the light, I suddenly realised I'd been holding my breath for longer than normal and breathed out heavily. I ran to the toilet and my body caved. My face was a blotchy red, my stomach had turned to liquid and I looked vacant in the mirror. After I'd sat down in the light for a while, given myself a talking to in the mirror, told myself 'you jumped out of a plane for crying out loud', I regained my composure, took some deep breaths and decided to give desert a go.

For 5-10mins I felt great. The people on the table next to us had left, and the room felt a little quieter and less overwhelming. My partner and I talked and Jack delivered us with desert. Almost as soon as we'd stopped talking to concentrate on the navigation of our food, somewhere in that darkness in front of us, the feeling came back. I focussed on the eating. I shovelled it fast in the hope that once we'd finish we could leave. But Jack took a long time to come, or at least it felt a long time. He has other people to serve I rationalised. He returned to the table to serve the couple next to us. My partner found the voice I couldn't and asked if we could be excused. Sensing no panic in his voice, Jack told us he just had to serve desert to others in the room first. It was pitch black, how was he supposed to sense the panic of an invisible and silent girl sat at the table he served.

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Jack vanished into the dark again and this time, I couldn't help myself. Before there had always been another course to come, a reason for Jack to come to the table. This time, I felt abandoned. I clutched my partner's hand tighter than ever, downed water with my other hand. I breathed in deeply and rocked back and forwards, half in panic and half in REALLY needing to nervous wee. I got evermore desperate both to escape the dark and to urinate. I downed every last drop of water.

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I rubbed my hands over and over my forehead and clutched my face. It must only have been a few minutes, but it felt like much more. I heard someone clearing the table not far from us and I couldn't handle it anymore. I turned to the darkness, turned in the direction of the noise and pleaded, eyes wide but seeing nothing. 'Excuse me, I need to leave'. 'Excuse me, I need to get out, I need to leave'. My partner did his best to calm me. He shouted Jack's name in the hope he might be nearby. The girl on the table with us asked if I was ok, and all I could make myself say, to her, to my partner to anyone, was 'I need to get out!'. I was near tears.

Jack's voice appeared, ever calm and ever reassuring. I was immediately silent, to hear his instructions. He addressed us by name and calmly escorted us both outside back into the light. I could have hugged him, I could have cried tears all down him. This man, had led me back to a place I felt safe, where I was in control, where I relied on no-one. I stressed as much as I could 'Thank you so much for looking after us', hoping that he'd hear just how much I mean that in my voice. I ran to the toilet rejoicing in the things I could see. I felt my heartbeat slow and my smile return to my face.

I couldn't wait to get outside for some fresh air, and left my partner to pay on his own. For someone who feels the cold even in Summer, I was now completely immune to the cold. I opted to walk the 40mins to Waterloo station drinking in the sights of London from Blackfriars Bridge, watching the lights ripple in the water, realising just how much my sight informs my adventurous self, how much it encourages my curiosity, and polishes my confidence.

I felt guilty at ruining our meal, and possibly other people's meals wth my desperation to escape. It's such a shame, because I couldn't enjoy the food like I would normally do, for panic. We'd been looking forward to this for years and instead, I became a nervous wreck, pleading with the empty darkness to get me out.

I never thought that I would be saying, after skydiving, bungee swings, going freelance, nearly drowning in waste-high water (don't ask) - that dining in the dark would be the most terrifying thing I've ever experienced. Every technique I've ever used to get over panic was stripped from me in the darkness that I couldn't get out of until someone escorted me. I was trapped and I felt utterly helpless. My legs were like jelly on leaving the restaurant and my nervous tummy was churning for over 24hrs. It took a good cry to let out the suppressed fear, to recover.

So I feel it's a little unfair to review Dans Le Noir (how people manage to date in the dark I'll never know). If nothing else, it gave me a huge respect for the blind, an even greater respect for our waiter Jack, and a realisation that though I may think I'm fearless, apparently I'm not fearless enough to get over a fear of the dark!

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