The time has long gone when food was just about eating. The experience is at least as important. So it’s no surprise that the circumstances in which you can enjoy a dinner, are handled very creatively.
Eating blind
Dining in the dark is a concept that pops up more and more. The idea behind it is that the dark gives extra stimulation to the senses: touch, smell, taste and hearing. When you can’t see anything, your other senses become more acute to compensate, so you can smell and taste better, and your ears pick up more sounds than usual. Restaurant C-taste in Amsterdam even has visually impaired staff, who guide the visitors to their place and serve the food and drinks.
No service
In San Francisco, a restaurant opened this autumn without serving staff. There are chefs at work in the restaurant named Etsa, but you don’t see them during a visit. Patrons place their order on an iPad and then pay with their credit card. As soon as the order is ready, the name of the customer and the accompanying number shows up on a screen, and the dish is ready in a glass booth. The restaurant wants to make fast food healthier, more accessible and cheaper. The founders have opted for quinoa as the main ingredient of all dishes.
Cat on your lap
Kopjes in Amsterdam is the first cat café in the Netherlands. The café was born after a successful crowdfunding campaign. The concept originates from Taiwan, and then became very popular in Japan. For a few years now, the cat cafés have been spreading to the West. At Kopjes, you pay a three Euro entrance fee, after which you can enjoy a ‘catuccino’ with pie or cake, in the company of seven cats. Simple lunches are also served.
Behind bars
In China, there’s a restaurant that looks like a prison. Prison Feng Yun in Tianjin heavily uses the prison theme. Fake spiders hang from the ceiling, and the bar is loaded with spirits. The staff wear orange overalls, and the food is served behind bars. There is even a part that shows how torturing is done in Chinese prisons. In the summer, when the floor is flooded, the guests get to wear flip-flops.
Dining without clothes
Clothing Optional Dinners is an event during which you can dine in the nude. The event is held in multiple restaurants in New York. Clothing Optional Dinners is an initiative by nudist and activist John J. Ordover. Visitors don’t need to be afraid of being watched, because all the windows are covered up.
Ninja New York
Ninja New York is a Japanese restaurants where you’re waited on by crouching warriors in black costumes roaming, romping around and performing tricks. The restaurant looks like a 15th century village full of dark corners and tortuous passageways. The ninjas turn the dinner into a true experience.
Safe dining
From the outside, it wouldn’t seem that there’s a restaurant here. The building in Milwaukee looks inconspicuous, but it’s meant to be that way. The Safe House is inspired by the CIA type of safe house, where an intelligence service can carry out its secret operations in relative safety. So you won’t find a sign advertising ‘Safe House’, and you even need a password to be able to enter.
Up the tree
In the New Zealand town of Warkworth, there’s a huge, pod-shaped treehouse where you can dine. The unusual restaurant is ten metres above ground, and can be reached via a special footbridge. There’s only room for thirty guests. So if you want to dine at the Redwoods Treehouse, do reserve a spot in advance.
