O Noir opened in the long-abandoned basement of the Town Suites a couple of months ago. Attracted by the editorial coverage, we had been talking about it, and finally we went. It was quite an experience.
The staff is young and unfailingly cheerful and interested. You go in through a dim bar/lounge area, where you order your meal. Two prix fixes -- three courses or main with either starter or dessert -- thirty bucks for two, thirty-six for three. You order your meal (you can choose to have a Surprise Dish), and then are escorted into the dark dining room. And I mean dark! 100% no light, double-door light traps at the entrance, blind servers.
The immediate effect of being in total darkness is some claustrophobia, and some effort on the part of the brain to make some sense out of the random sparks your retina produces all the time.
The mind clutches at any physical clues; the feel of the upholstered back of the chair produced a clear picture of the colour and texture of the fabric, the bare wood table-top became polished mahogany with no extra clues.
The server seems very close as he helps you to your banquette seat, the conversations at the table around are a difficult blur of sound without the cues of faces and body English. I had some sympathy with my aged father-in-law, who is very deaf and is similarly lost in a context with much background sound.
So far, so interesting. Unfortunately, the evening went sharply downhill.
The food served has to be manageable, so the meat is cut up and the dishes tend to be pasty, rather than runny or crisp, but what an opportunity has been lost to surprise and delight with strong flavours and unusual combinations, with unexpected textures and subtle differences. With no other sensory input, the tastebuds could go wild. But the food was institutional. The kitchen is working from a curiously boring mandate, or the costs have been kept too low. The food features everything that is bad about hospital and retirement home catering -- not hot, under-seasoned, covered with bland brown gravy. My bland portobello mushroom was set on a small nest of lettuce whose unremarkable dressing positively sang in the context, my veal al limone could have been recycled for the next night's stewed veal, or indeed any tender bland meat. The braised vegetables were distinguishable only by their mouth feel.
The Surprise dish would have been an embarrassment, because I can't imagine how one would ever guess what the food was. The Surprise would come as you paid the bill, outside in the lounge, when they told you the secret.
We didn't wait for a dessert, seeing that all the reviewers had been disappointed by its unrelieved chocolateyness, and we came out onto Church feeling let down.
What a shame that such an interesting idea, successfully running in Montreal, should have been so diluted in the application. Perhaps the space will attract another restaurant with less concept and better food.
