Eating in the dark: I can't wait to see what I'm eating

Cologne's Unsicht-Bar is the perfect restaurant for a blind date: diners sit in darkness while a sightless waiter serves them. And, as Tony Paterson finds, the lack of light tests the senses in unexpected ways

The couples dutifully studying the menu at Cologne's Unsicht-Bar restaurant looked more like patients in a dentist's waiting room than diners out for a night on the town. Their unsmiling faces betrayed creeping apprehension about what lay in store.

"Once you have placed your order, our waiter will escort you to your table," announced Josey, the restaurant's peroxide-blonde receptionist as she waved her rather disturbing black-varnished fingernails in the air.

A waiter with a curiously vacant expression grabbed me by the hand and pulled me into a hallway lit only by a single dim bulb. It was the last I was to see of the restaurant for the next two hours.

He slid the door behind us shut and then opened another in front that led into a black void punctuated by the sound of laughter, clinking glasses and the scrape of knives on plates. I had just passed through the "light-lock" and arrived in the inner sanctum of the Unsicht-Bar, the first restaurant in Germany where diners eat in total darkness.

Since it opened last year, the Unsicht-Bar (which means "Invisible" in German) has proved a roaring success. Its blacked-out, 40-seat dining-room is packed most nights and attracts diners ranging from the curious middle-aged to literal blind-daters. The concept is so popular that its proprietors will next month open another Unsicht-Bar in Berlin that will be three times the size of its Cologne counterpart.

"Dining in the dark means that you are forced to rely on your other senses," promises the Unsicht-Bar's founder and manager Axel Rudolph, 46. "It means that you are suddenly much more receptive to smell, texture of food and its temperature," he added.

To complete the adventure, the restaurant offers only organic food procured from Germany's burgeoning "Green" farming sector. "We don't smother our dishes in pretentious sauces," says the the Unsicht-Bar's chef, Dieter Voigt. "The emphasis is on the inherent quality of each item on the menu. The only spices we use are salt, pepper, fresh garlic and herbs," he says.

Four set menus offer different vegetarian, lamb, chicken and cheese courses priced at about €30 each. The courses are described in terms of a riddle in order to ensure that customers aren't quite sure what they are getting. "Noble green – it has escaped from Hell and finds solace on a cool breast," is how breast of chicken garnished with fresh garden salad is advertised, for example.

Ordering is done in the Unsicht-Bar's brightly decorated lobby before customers are guided into the blackness of the dining area, where torches, mobile phones and even luminous watches are banned.

Majsar Saliov, the Macedonian waiter, steered me to a table, sat me down and proceeded to take my hand on a tour: knives at three o'clock, forks at nine, spoons at 12, glasses at one. The clattering of what sounded like a trolley echoed somewhere to my right.

"You ordered soup, it's right in front, with bread in a basket just behind," Majsar said.

My hands fumbled for a bowl, I found the spoon and plunged it into the soup. But then I missed my mouth and found sudden comfort in the fact that no one could see what was happening. Then I discovered that the soup bowl was equipped with sensible double handles and, like most of the Unsicht-Bar's customers, I decided to abandon cutlery for the rest of the meal and use my napkin as a bib.

The plate of crudités that followed turned into a rare experience. Until I smelled it, I was convinced that what was in truth, half a boiled free-range egg, was a slice of aubergine clamped between my fingers. The dolmades, or stuffed vine leaves, were a real problem until I got my teeth sunk in and I felt their texture.

Free-range lamb fed on salt grass followed as the main course, by which time I had really got stuck into the texture, taste and smell experience. My fingers wandered over an enormous plate. The slices of lamb felt delicious, they smelt even better and the salt grass seemed to spread out before me as I chewed. Each sip of Italian Sauvignon was preceded by what can only be described as a nasal feast of its own.

It turned out that Majsar, the waiter, was totally blind. He had been suffering from impaired vision since he arrived in Germany with his family as a refugee 10 years ago. But then his sight went completely. He found a job at the Unsicht-Bar earlier this year. Did he realise that he was working in the dark? His answer reveals aspects about blindness that few of us ever consider.

"Because I could once see, I imagine the darkness, just as I imagine the light," he says. "I consider myself lucky because those who are born blind don't know the difference," he added.

Majsar and his two fellow waiters, who are partially sighted, rely on ingenious techniques to do their job. They carry mobile phones, which have their internal lightbulbs removed, at all times. The reception desk phones them when another customer arrives. The kitchen calls when food is on its way. Each food trolley carries three large screws driven into its top rail which represent the three shelves on the trolley.

Matchbox-sized tape recorders are looped round each screw. They carry the recorded instructions from the kitchen staff which tell the waiters which courses are on what shelf.

"Very occasionally, customers find they can't handle the pitch dark and we have to lead them out," says Majsar, "But otherwise the job is a lot of fun. Blind dates are the most rewarding. We get couples who get to know each other on the internet and then book a meal here. We make sure that they don't see each other until after dinner," he adds.

Yet the fun of a blind date at the Unsicht-Bar was only really brought home to me after I left the restaurant to settle my bill in the reception area. My neighbours were what I took to be two women friends who chatted enthusiastically about Ireland, politics and complained about the expense of London on their last visit there. "We can't wait to see what you look like," they said to me as we were guided away from our tables. We emerged into the dazzling light of the reception area. It turned out that one of the two women was a man.