Blindekuh

This summer, I finally had a chance to visit Blindekuh. Blindekuh is a restaurant in Basel, Switzerland, but more than that it is a unique experience. On arrival, you need to lock everything that is light emitting away, your phone, your watch, etc. Then, you have a look at the menu in the waiting area. Next, you are greeted by your waiter and taken to your table. But your waiter is not any waiter, she is blind. And she takes you into a pitch black room, where you will have your dinner in the dark.

You soon learn to totally rely on your waiter. When you are led into the darkest of dark rooms, you are asked to hold on to the shoulders of the person before you. And don’t let go! Otherwise, you will need to scream for your waiter to rescue you because you have no clue where you are nor where to safely move to. Immediately, you focus more on your hearing, you try to make out the dimensions of the room just by focusing on the faintest sounds you can hear.

You have no idea how far you travel to your table. It seems to take forever. Then you sit. The table is well prepared. The chairs are angled and relativity close to the table. Your waiter comes very close and guides you with her body to your seat, helps you to sit down. Safety at last. You start to settle. You order some drinks. When they arrive, your waiter comes very close to you with her body, to let you know she is there, gives you’re your drink. And you don’t dare to let go of your drink! You order your food. A snack, compliments form the chef arrives. Now you need to let go of your drink! You finger around for some space, and try to make a mental note what’s around the glass you have just left in the dark, so you will find it again.

Now you tackle the challenge of eating. You try to feel with your fork – what is it? Some kind of Asian noodle salad, you try to fork some noodles. Failure. Thy land straight back on the plate, if you are lucky. Mine landed slightly next to it. You start to be more daring and just pick them up with your hands and put them back on the plate. Nobody sees what you do, anyway! And this is a very liberating thought. Now you realise you should probably put on the napkin to protect your clothes from food droppings. Just in time, because my next heap of noodle fell off the fork before it reached my mouth. Next time I go very, very close to the plate, where I think it might be.

I start to think about my toddler and how he has trouble navigating food from the plate into his mouth without dropping it on the way. I feel bad for scolding him to be more careful. When you have fewer senses, or just developing your sense of distance, you simply have less control over what happens with the things you move between point A and B.

We chose the surprise menu, and, of course, half the fun was discovering what you were eating. We managed to guess most, surprisingly, the meat was the most challenging item to classify with certainty. Amongst conversation and lots of laughter, you really settled into the situation and I felt comfortable after about an hour. I didn’t really want to get up, nor see the table in the light. It must have been the messiest table I have ever left in a restaurant (what a fantastic photography project, btw.).

There were so many challenges, I can’t even name them all. How much is still in the wine bottle. And for a starter, where is the wine bottle on the table? What else is on the table, and how do I find it? What is on my plate? How do I take food I don’t see? Do I need to cut the meat? Where? I like to mix my food, but once you had one food located on the plate, you better stuck with it, otherwise, you might not find it again. Btw, you are really tempted to eat with your hands, when at least you could feel it better! Fork and knife don’t give you any clue about the consistency of food.

In a conversation, who is taking the next turn? How do I get the attention of my waiter? What, if I need a bathroom? Who else is here? How many people are in the room? I would not recommend going with people you don’t know well, it could well end up in awkward silence or disaster.

I was sitting so comfortably, and I didn’t want to leave. Again, we held the shoulder of the person before us and were guided out. Our waiter said she navigates along some panels on the floor. She also said she can guess how much is left in the wine bottle by weight.

It is true, you really need to train your other senses when you have no vision left to inform your cognition. An interesting article on the use of ‘the other’ senses in blind people was just published in The Conversation.

Blindekuh, the name of the restaurant, stems from a game where you are blindfolded and challenged to find a person or thing. Blindekuh is a charitable foundation and the largest employer of partially and non-sighted individuals in Switzerland. The two partially sighted founders created the charity in 1998. With the revenue from the restaurants, they fund projects to support blind and partially-sighted in other projects. All projects aim at creating a dialogue and better understanding between sighted and non-sighted people.

And a last one. Are the chefs blind? Your guess!