I was initially very excited to try this but ended up being very disappointed. Â Dining in the dark is a cool idea but in this case it was poorly executed. Â The room was very noisy, and they were understaffed for the amount of people there (maybe because we all had Groupons). The servers are supposed to pour your wine but we ended up taking off our blindfolds to pour or own most of the time.
Our friends sitting across from us received each course at least 10 minutes before us and were finished before our food arrived. Â Each course was cold by the time it arrived, and some were not appropriate to be eaten with your hands (cold slimy scallops?)
I hope they improve it with better service and smaller seatings because it could be a really cool experience.
There's a lot going on here, but the fact of the matter is that it is a restaurant, so after you get past all the bells and whistles, you have to focus on the food, and the food just wasn't very good. They served five dishes; one was okay, the rest were below average if not borderline inedible (not necessarily because of the taste, but the texture and combinations just weren't right). My husband and I have eaten at very good restaurants in the city, but we aren't foodies or restaurant brats by a long shot, and we both agreed that things were put together that just shouldn't be put together. We speculated that, because you're blindfolded, you actually have a heightened sense of taste and can more acutely taste the flavors (or be more critical), but whether or not that is the case is beside the point, because the food is bad either way.
As for the rest of it, there just isn't really a theme to the night. You see where you're eating before you're blindfolded, and it really is a barren, white-walled living room. There is classical music playing and a violinist, which is nice, but doesn't really make sense. It's also loud, again, possibly because people are nervous and/or overcompensating for the fact that they can't see.
The good news is that your bill for dinner goes, at least partially, to a charity for retinal research. That's the silver lining. Otherwise, we won't go back, and we felt like the $55 (per person) we paid for the meal was too much.
My husband and I attended the dinner on 10/7. We had the Gilt city voucher which was a $30 discount on the original price, I believe. The website/Gilt description is misleading. No one is wearing military goggles, why lie about it? It is not completely dark, as others have said. The room is lit with green lights.
The seating arrangement is similar to other underground dining establishments -- so yes, folding chairs but that is what I expected.
Overall, yes the event was unique, but the food was possibly worth the $55, definitely not $85. As others have said, the bread was delicious. I love to just give myself over to a chef and have them present me with whatever they want. I am rarely disappointed. In fact, this would be the first time in recent memory that I was. The first course was pretty good and it got my hopes up. The second course (salad) was a little weird -- which is standard for some tasting menus -- but not amazingly delicious. The third course was scallops which were difficult to pick up with your hands and were not overly unique. The fourth course was lamb in a bitter green wrap (I cannot remember what bitter green it was!). This received mixed reviews. The stuffing was good, but the wrap was much too bitter. My husband didn't finish his (and he eats anything!). The final course, the cheesecake pops, was disappointing. You received two pops, my first one was ok but a little mealy. The second one I could not eat. Everyone was blindfolded so I should have just spit it out, but I swallowed it down. I have never, ever not eaten something on a tasting menu. I'm sorry to say to the chef, but this was not tasty at all. The couple near us had a similar experience, so I knew we weren't crazy.
So I was fine with the event for what it was. I can say I "dined in the dark." I would like to actually experience what it is they say you will experience (a truly dark room -- the blindfold actually became uncomfortable after a while). I would not recommend paying full price for this. I would not ever go back and I'm planning to avoid the other ventures of the chef.
So this dining in the dark thing seemed pretty sketchy but iv seen shows about it and everyone seemed to love the idea of doing it so I risked it and im glad I did. awesome experience forsure!!
When you go in they give you a blindfold and take your hand to get seated. The concept is when you lose one of your senses its suppose to boost the others which it did. The food was good and they had a great staff to get you what you needed.
Overall if I could do it again I would in a heartbeat. Good food,good friends and a good time!
This is quite the experience! This even is held in a private, large, very nice home in downtown Chicago. The seating it set up with large tables and it is communal seating. It was great to be able to meet new people at your table without even seeing them.
There is dim lighting in the room so upon arrival we were greeted by the friendly host and she offered us blindfolds. A violin was playing in the background and that was a nice surprise and great touch. We then were guided to our tables and they took our wine to open. They also guided our hands to the water and wine glass. Anytime we wanted a refill we were instructed to raise our hand and within moments someone was there to assist us. This was also the procedure to go to the bathroom and then someone would guide you there where you could take off your blindfold. :) The atmosphere is high energy as everyone is pretty excited and talkative. Don't go into this thinking it's going to be a quiet calm event. I really enjoyed the energy behind it.
Fresh bread was brought to the table and the aroma of it immediately caught my attention as my sense of smell was heightened. A bell would sounds at the beginning of each course and the chef would come out and describe the thoughts behind each dish. All ingredients were purchased locally and the farmers market and everything was all natural/organic. I really enjoyed each of the dishes and their creativity and inspiration. The only thing I didn't fully enjoy was the final course which was a cheesecake pop. Just a little too off the beaten path with some Indian inspired flavors.
This dinner is more of an experience and you have to go in with an open mind. Â Honestly, the hater type reviews on here are people not looking for any kind of adventure. It was exciting in the end to take the blindfolds off and shake hands with the people you have been talking with for the past two hours! I am now inspired to plan on my own dinner party for my friends with this same concept!
I recommend this strongly to anyone looking to do something different and at the same time supporting a charity.
I went to dining in the dark last Friday and all I have to say is WOW! It was a fantastic experience.
My friend and I were very skeptical to go because of the communal seating and the fact that it was in the dark. The communal seating turned out to be a fun concept, and we got to meet some new people!
It was not as dark as anticipated it would be but I felt very comfortable because all of the staff was very nice and helpful. The dark really didn't enhance the taste of the food, maybe it was just me! The food was really good, I just loved the lamb sausage! It had flavors of mint, lavender and parsnip that together really complemented the lamb!
Overall, this was a great experience! And I can't wait to do it again!
In one word: Horrible. At the time of this writing, there are 16 reviews of Opacity on Yelp. 14 of them are glowing 5 STAR reviews, but predictably enough, they are filtered as fraudulent reviews by the Yelp filter. Much kudos to the Yelp algorithm, because upon reading some of these supposed  "reviews," it becomes abundantly clear they are completely fake reviews written by hired shills, or the staff themselves.
That they would try so hard to fake good reviews speaks volumes to how much of a sham the entire Opacity ordeal actually is. The remaining 2 legitimate (and negative) reviews are the only ones that speak the truth -- Opacity took a promising premise (Dining in the Dark) and turned it into one of the worst dining experiences imaginable.
I should have trusted my first instinct when I saw the horribly-designed Opacity website and menu, but decided to take a chance since the novel premise seemed fun. Sadly, it was clear the whole thing was going to be a train wreck as soon as we arrived. The entire dinner is conducted in a fairly well-lit room (dim and in a greenish glow), not the dark as they would have you believe. Instead, they just make you wear uncomfortable blindfolds the whole time. The "Opacity Estate" is actually some guy's living room, I kid you not. They pack you in, seating you on cheap plastic folding chairs and fold-out tables.
The noise of everyone practically screaming to try and hold conversation while surrounded by 40 other screaming people packed into a living room is deafening. Good luck speaking to the person seated 6" away from you. There are maybe 3 wait staff for a group of 40, and they are constantly too busy to pour (you're blindfolded remember) your BYOB wine and drinks, so you constantly have to take off your blindfold to do it yourself, ruining any remaining illusion of being in the dark you might have had.
Chef Lauren Parton was extremely disappointing. Her menu was full of terrible textures and flavors that don't work in the slightest. I can only believe she was attempting to be adventurous and emulate more talented culinary colleagues, but just lacks the talent or taste buds to come up with a decent menu of her own.
Every course was served grossly lukewarm or cold. Even worse, the too-few staff they have distribute the courses so slowly, you can't eat and discuss dishes with your friends sitting right by you, because they get their food 10 minutes before you do. You could wait the ten minutes I guess -- the food is already cold, so it couldn't get much worse.
Every course was unremarkable at best, or tasted like floor cleaner or spoiled food at worst. The only positive note that I can think of about the whole ordeal is that the dinners are a benefit for the Foundation for Retinal Research. Faced with the choice of attending again, however, I'd much rather write a check to the foundation and then go out to one of the many amazing other restaurants and dining experiences Chicago has to offer.
A few weeks ago on Gilt City there was a deal for a dinner in the dark event, meaning you're eating dinner in the dark. Interesting experience, right? So my friend and I bought the Gilt City deal for Opacity, a dining in the dark dinner experience. We were to come dressed to impress (even though no one would really see you), the dinner was BYOB, no forks would be used, we would be blindfolded, and our servers would have military night goggles so they could see and serve our food. So Friday night we got ready, met up, and taxi'ed over to the address that was given for the event.
We arrived at the address and soon found out it was actually a residence, someone's actual house. After the dinner I talked to one of the event owners and he said it was his partners house and he actually lived there. Wow, imagine, a 5 story house.
So anyway, just looking at the green lit house, it looked like we were about to enter a haunted house, kind of eery. We entered this 5 story house and were greeted with blindfolds. The dining area seated a little more than 50 people (pretty tightly) and looked like it was in their front living room. The place wasn't actually pitch black dark like I expected. It was dark with a few low lit lights covered with a green tint. So sadly and a bit disappointed, the servers were not wearing military goggles to serve us.
When we placed our blindfolds on, a server took our hand and lead us to our seats. If you needed to get up during the meal or needed something, you were to raise your right hand and a server would come get you. We sat at shared tables and were the first ones there. Our fellow diners arrived shortly after our first course arrived.
The dinner included 5 courses and bread, which I found to be the best. The following was served...along with my opinion of each.
Course 1: Amuse - black olive clafoutis with orange-scallion slaw
Although they pretty much look the same, they didn't taste the same. One of them was really crunch which I didn't like. The other 2 were okay.
We were also told that the dinner was going to be comfort food with familiar tastes. Not so much...
Course 2: Salad - carrot and parsley sorbet with lemon confit, served in ginger cracker
Honestly, not a huge fan. I ate it because I eat everything but the "sorbet" tasted like frozen ice and didn't taste the carrot.
Course 3: Entree - scallops and plantain seared in duck fat, accented with grapefruit and avocado sabayon, garnished with fried basil leaf
I started with the scallops closest to me on the plate. They were a bit over cooked. The piece in the middle, not sure what it was but didn't taste like a scallop. The last piece was a scallop and cooked nicely. Sadly, I think that was my favorite piece of the whole dinner, well except the bread, the bread was really good but I think it was from a vendor from the Green City Farmer's Market since the dinner was cooked with local ingredients.
Course 4: Entree - house-made lamb sausage, cardamom parsnip puree, mint chimichurri, and a thyme and lavender gelee in a crisp radicchio leaf
We were told to eat this like a lettuce wrap. That didn't work out too well. One, cabbage doesn't fold as nicely. Two, after seeing this picture, there's way too much sauce in it. When I tried to wrap and eat it, my sausages fell out and I had sauce all over my hands. I ate the sausages after the cabbage but even then I wasn't really impressed with the taste though others at my table found the sausage to be the best part of the dinner.
Course 5: Dessert - ricotta cheesecake pops, drizzled with peach-rose simply syrup, and rolled in crushed pistachios
Simply frozen and not edible. It was like a lollipop with frost bite. I actually couldn't eat the whole thing so it pretty much went to waste.
Overall, the dinner wasn't that impressive. For a chef, Chef Lauren Parton, that they seemed to hype up and sound like she'd come out with "Top Chef" pieces, it was quite disappointing. We did give our feedback afterwards and were told that they're still working on their menu. This was their 6th dinner in the dark event and they were hoping to perfect the dinner by the next couple tries, and there's 15 in total. I wish they perfected the dinner menu before the 1st event.
Although the food wasn't that great, eating blindfolded was. The event was to support the Foundation for Retinal Research. It was giving people a little piece of what the blind experience everyday. It was definitely an interesting experience. After seeing the pictures of the food, I couldn't imagine not being able to see what I ate. It actually looked quite appealing, just didn't taste that great. They even gave us bracelets with brail on them, though I forget what they say.
So I am glad that I did go and got to experience it but the food was disappointing. Hopefully they'll improve their next dinners. To read my full story, read my latest blog, <a href="/redir?url=http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2Fqk0XBj&s=1fb1b5c734492d5ed255a3af7c47d59ee83726d9a0f18770eb4d1deb90e72f1e" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://bit.ly/qk0XBj</a>
They ask you to be there by no later than 815 but we waited outside for 45 minutes. The food was horrible. The chef used too many flavors, so you tasted a mess and could not taste any of the flavors individually. Muddled flavors. The texture for just about each dish was disgusting, which made it hard to digest.
Review Source:I have never done something like this before and seen something like it in California when i was on business trip but didn't have time to try. When I saw that it was happening in my own back yard I just had to try it. I was just amazed with the whole experience. It really makes you think wow that we use our eyes for everything. The food smelled and tasted amazing. Eating in the dark really lets you enjoy the all the flavors the food has to offer. The wait staff took good care of you made you feel really comfortable. Can't wait to do this again.
Review Source:
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