When it comes to pre-theater specials, the one preceding “Not by Bread Alone” is hard to beat. It’s not so much what you eat — though the meal, catered by Danny Meyer’s Union Square Events, is delectable — but how: in total darkness.
The pop-up Blackout Restaurant is set in a sub-basement of the Skirball Center, where you’re asked to take off coats, bags and anything that could be a source of light, like cellphones and watches with glow-in-the-dark faces.
Then you’re given a bib. You’ll need it!
Each party is assigned a waiter — each of them visually impaired or blind, all of them from Israel — who leads you into the restaurant in single file, hands resting on the shoulders of the person ahead. The staff wears bells on their wrists to alert each other to their moves.
There are no menus, Braille or otherwise, for the three Kosher courses that follow. You have a choice of a fish or vegetable entree, but other than that you don’t know what’s on the plate. This is part of the experience, and after each course our waitress, Maayan Frank, gently quizzed us on what we thought we’d eaten: Let’s just say the dessert featured an unexpected use of cheese.
Whatever you do get, eating it is a challenge. I found the best way to deal was a combination of fork and finger. Happily, hand wipes are provided.
At $200, the Blackout-and-a-show package is pricey. A more affordable option is buying a snack or drink from Café Kapish, where you tell the hearing-impaired staff what you’d like through sign language. Helpful photos indicate how to say “cookie” or “soda,” but it’s easy to go wrong: Trying for a bottle of water, we ended up with three coffees.
We didn’t even attempt signing “Sorry, that’s not what I ordered.”