5 Reasons Onoir Should Be Your Next Dinner Out

5 Reasons to Eat At Onoir

| Feature

The most unique dining experiences you’ll ever have

Onoir is one of the most unique dining experiences you’ll ever have. Your entire meal takes place in pitch dark! You get to experience food, drink and conversation on a whole new level. That unique concept is reason enough to want to try Onoir, but the restaurant is much more than a gimmick!

Exceptional Montreal Restaurant Experience

Beyond the Darkness: 5 More Reasons to Eat at Onoir

Here are 5 more reasons to choose Onoir for your next dinner out:

1. Warm Family Feeling

Onoir is a family run business, operated by a mom and her grown kids and a good friend as partner.. They truly love working together and share this warm family feeling with their staff and clients. When you walk into the restaurant you see the owner and staff, working together as a team. You can feel how genuinely they enjoy working together and the love and respect they have for each other. You feel these good vibes from the moment you walk in and throughout your meal. That warm family vibe feels so comforting and inviting, you just won’t want to leave.

2. Amazing Food

You might think that because you are eating in the dark, the food might not be as good, or that they might slack on presentation. This is sometimes the case when restaurants have a ‘hook’ of some kind.

Onoir is the opposite. The food is truly decadent and rivals that of many upscale restaurants. Without your sight, taste, texture and scent are what you rely on, and your senses will not be dissapointed.

In fact, presentation is as much a part of the experience as preparation! We were given a sneak peek at the kitchen in action and saw some truly amazing presentations designed for diners to feel as they enjoy their meal.

Their menu satisfies meat lovers and vegetarians, and even has surprise menu items for a really exceptional experience. Onoir uses local, in season foods and changes the menu at least four times a year to accommodate in season ingredients.

Ok… but how do you even order if you’re in the dark? Well, the entire experience is not in the dark. You begin in a well lit room where you can relax, enjoy a drink and peruse the tempting menu. When you’re ready, your waiter will guide you to your table in darkness. You hold the back of your waiter’s shoulder and your fellow diners hold the back of yours. Like a train!

3. Gain a whole new perspective on visual impairment

The Onoir experience was created to give sighted people a better understanding of sightlessness. You will truly enjoy eating in the dark and exploring new facets of your other senses, but you will also develop a new sense of gratitude in that it is your choice to eat in the dark, and not an everyday reality for you.

As you eat, you learn how to find the food on your plate, how to detect and navigate the borders of your plate and how to get the food from your plate to your mouth. It’s a whole new way of eating that will (pardon the wordplay) open your eyes to how a significant segment of our population experiences the world.

Your dinner will also go towards helping people with disabilities. Onoir donated a portion of its profits to organizations that help people with a visual or any sort of handicap. Onoir’s greatest dream is to see technology advance to the point that one day, their staff could also see.

We were served by Tim and he really gave us five-star service :-)

4. Disconnect to reconnect with your sense of taste, smell and sound

We all know we should disconnect from our phones, social media, work, the constant news cycle and all that digital chatter so that we can unwind and spend more time with people we care about. Onoir is the perfect opportunity. You are not allowed to bring phones, cameras or anything with light into the dining room. There will be no Instagramming your meal here! Instead, it’s all about the enjoyment of your food.

You’ll find yourself (pleasantly) forced to truly listen more to the people you are with, to savor and pay attention to every bite as you never know what your fork is picking up on the plate, and to connect with your senses in a whole new way. You will also notice the aromas of your meal more strongly, especially if you order the surprise meals.

The experience is truly refreshing and enlightening as you connect, in new ways, with your own self.

5. Everyone is equal

In the dark, we are all the same. We see no ethnic differences, no money differences, no gender differences. We are all just souls enjoying an incredible experience together. It humbles you and makes you feel closer to the people around you. You will come to appreciate those around you on a new level, and learn a thing or two about yourself as some of the self consciousness that comes with being seen melts away.

Extra: A great option for birthdays, anniversaries or corporate events

This also makes Onoir a great option for birthdays, anniversaries or corporate events. It’s a place to bring your staff to sensitize them to the realities the visually impaired face, and encourage them to connect with each other in new ways.

Onoir offers two sittings, one at 5:30 PM and one at 8:30 PM. They can accommodate between 30-85 people per sitting, so reservations are a good idea.

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