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Dans le Noir pop up at Swinfen Hall

March 11, 2022 1 Comment Filed Under: Restaurants, UK

If you want something unusual to do during the month of March, ‘Dans Le Noir’ has launched a pop-up dining experience at Swinfen Hall in Lichfield,(2 hours by train from Euston). While the hotel is a 250 year old traditional country house replete with deer park, roaring fireplaces, ornately decorated ceilings and wedding cake plasterwork, ‘Dans le Noir’ is one of the most original and immersive events I’ve ever attended.

After being told our seating arrangements and waiting with drinks, we are led to our table, by blind waiter Roberto in dark shades. We’ve been told to leave our phones and watches in a locker outside, to prevent any reflections within the dining room. Instructed to put a hand on the shoulder of the guest in front, in the manner of a nursery school crocodile, we enter into a velvety blackness, our faces brushed by curtains, twisting and turning until a tactile Roberto pushes us into chairs.

swinfen hall, Dans le Noir pop up pic-Kerstin Rodgers - 4
swinfen hall, Dans le Noir pop up pic-Kerstin Rodgers - 15

We are in his domain now. He’s in control. I enjoy the dark, feeling comforted and stimulated by this new experience. It reminds me of my photography training, spending hours in a darkroom. Others, I’m told by Ola, the ‘Dans le Noir’ manager, feel too vulnerable and exposed. ‘Many people ask to leave quite quickly, they can’t handle it’.

The ambient noise is tremendous as other tables are sat, voices getting louder with nerves. I find it harder to ‘hear’ my dining companions. As someone who is deaf in one ear, I rely more than I realise on reading lips.

Our first task, Roberto instructs us is to pour a glass of water: ‘There is a bottle of water in front of you’.  I grope the table, finding the bottle and unscrewing the top. The glass is to the right. I pour the water, keeping one finger inside the glass so that I know when to stop. I breathe out deeply, mission accomplished.

Again I feel Roberto’s hands, placing a bowl in front of me, feeling him touch my hands so as to guide me. He then serves the others. I can only really hear the woman next to me. Those opposite are silent, which is unnerving, while Ola, who sits at the head of the table, talks us through the meal. The quiet people ‘disappear’. You don’t know if they are still there.

Roberto gives me a glass of wine, which I pat the table to find. I’m guessing it is white, because of the chilled temperature. Famously there was a ‘black glass’ experiment in which the finest masters of wine are given blind tastings of different wines at the same temperature. Virtually none of them could distinguish between red or white wine.

Dans le Noir suggests your senses will be stronger when deprived of vision. I’m not sure that is the case. Certainly not immediately. Scientist Frédéric Brochet discovered that the brain processes olfactory (taste and smell) cues approximately ten times slower than sight — 400 milliseconds versus 40 milliseconds.

The experience is messier, riskier and harder to differentiate between flavours. Texture and temperature become all important: common foods such as cucumber feel cold or wet. Nothing is served too hot: it is a risk for the blind waiters and also for the diners. Nor do we have stem glasses for wine; tumblers are safer.

We have 4 courses: the first has something rubbery and smooth in the middle. I think it’s an egg. The second course is ravioli with possibly a root vegetable inside? By now I’m feeling out food with my fingers rather than cutlery. The design on top of the third course pastry feels like some kind of pithivier. There is a creamy puddle – mushroom?

Dessert has crispy bits- puffed rice? Cold thick cream, perhaps ice cream. I got confused, some of the sweetness tasted bitter almost savoury. By the fourth course I realised I had food in my fringe.

Later, having drinks in the sitting room, Roberto and Dhao, our blind waiters, emerge. Now they are quiet, sitting down with dark glasses and canes. Now we are in the world of the sighted. I ask: how do you differentiate between the meals? vegetarian, meat eaters or gluten-free. It turns out, that the shape of the plates and bowl are different for each specialised diet.

swinfen hall, Dans le Noir pop up pic-Kerstin Rodgers - 20
swinfen hall, Dans le Noir pop up pic-Kerstin Rodgers - 19

The next day we sit in the huge elegant ballroom for breakfast and wander around the gardens where there is a huge oak tree painted red. This is an interesting and diverting weekend away from London which will take place all of March and again in November.

swinfen hall, Dans le Noir pop up pic-Kerstin Rodgers - 13
swinfen hall, Dans le Noir pop up pic-Kerstin Rodgers - 8
  • To Book: https://swinfenhallhotel.co.uk/dining-in-the-dark/
  • Period: 1st March to 31st March 2022
  • Price – £95pp – incl. 4 course meal and wine
  • Times:
    • Wednesday to Saturday – first seating 6pm, last seating 9.45pm
    • Sunday – 12 noon to 15.45pm
  • Dietary requirements to be provided ahead of booking
  • No photography allowed
Swinfen hall Dans le Noir pop up pic-Kerstin Rodgers - 1 (1)
swinfen hall, Dans le Noir pop up pic-Kerstin Rodgers - 6

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  1. Margo

    April 23, 2022 at 12:09 pm

    Once did a wine tasting in the dark. It was a silly idea as finding the glass was hard. Then finding your next drink by groping around. Sure the person next door drank some of mine. ?

    Reply

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MsMarmiteLover aka Kerstin Rodgers.

Chef, photographer, author, journalist, blogger. Pioneer of the supperclub movement.

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My piece in the @hamandhigh about the 3 day @heat My piece in the @hamandhigh about the  3 day @heathostile training course. Incredibly interesting & challenging. Link: https://www.hamhigh.co.uk/things-to-do/hostile-environment-training-9037980 to read more #hostileenvironmenttraining
Supper club dishes from Saturday: pickled beetroot Supper club dishes from Saturday: pickled beetroot eggs, cheeseboard, stracciatella & cucumber, tomato/strawberry/peashoot salad with real balsamic & spruce oil, home cured dill gravlax, smoked salmon, homemade sourdough crisp bread, potato salad with wild fennel & lots more! #supperclub #midsummer #eattherainbow (miss you @linnsoederstroem)
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My first supperclub in two years will take place t My first supperclub in two years will take place this Saturday 18th June starting at 7.30pm. Tickets are £50 byo you can book here: https://msmarmitelover.com/product/midsommar-supper-club there are still a few places left. Pescetarian menu. Scandi and botanical influences. #gettingbackonmyfeet #postpandemic #smallbusinesses #supperclub #london
I recently completed the 3 day @heathostile train I recently completed the 3 day  @heathostile training course. On the last day I was kidnapped by ex-special forces for a few hours & learnt how to deal with compliance training & a hostile environment. It was one of the most interesting experiences of my life. 3 intense days of combat first aid, navigation & how to survive in a war zone. I handled short, long guns, mortars, grenades, bullets, and tourniquet & bandaged an amputee. I learnt where to sit in a car, where to hide from a bullet, where to protect myself if in a car. It was brilliant. Highly recommended for any journalists, photographers, cameramen, charity workers, paramedics going into any difficult environment say a disaster or war. The stories from the tutors & the other participants were so interesting. My piece on it out soon. Book a course: https://hostile-environment.co.uk/  They also do jungle & desert training. I’d love to join the Antarctic expedition. Anyway that’s me hooded in the front. #adventures #het #hostileenvironmenttraining #experiences #travel
Bundoran beach, Donegal. I spent a week knocking o Bundoran beach, Donegal. I spent a week knocking on doors, going to libraries, searching through graveyards for my Irish forebears. It’s really hard to find information prior to 1850. I found this in last years trip to Arbroath in Scotland. Headstones wear out, records are lost or burnt in a fire, everybody has the same name and are known by nicknames, successive children have the same first name, that usually means they died and the next one is called by the same thing. Women did have children out of wedlock, and people remarried more often than you’d think, plus families fall out & never see each other again. I learnt that my Irish great grandfather michael went to Glasgow & met a woman who came from a similar place: somewhere wild & beautiful by the sea. Then they and their children came to london. Chasing the work & the money always. Politics and economics matter for they push people around from rural to city. And now we rodgers are Londoners. #ireland #scotland #family #travel #roots
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I’ve taken down the previous post as it’s poor I’ve taken down the previous post as it’s poor timing considering what’s happened over the last 24 hours. Being British I’ve not grown up around guns. It’s interesting to be on this course and find out more about the reality of them, although my focus is learning the ‘golden triangle’ of first aid, communications and navigation. But at the same time It’s depressing how in America nothing will ever change regarding gun law. RIP.
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