Feast for the Senses

It’s not just about taste anymore. Hear, see, touch and smell what these restaurants across the country have to offer.

BY TONY WARE
ILLUSTRATIONS BY HENNIE HAWORTH

There’s no guaranteed recipe for success in the culinary world. Chefs don’t have it easy, having to take food—one of the most basic necessities for survival—and make it into something fun and desirable. But some have found a way to transform a dish into a feast for not only the stomach, but also the eyes, ears and mind. From eating in the dark and destination-themed dining to all-garlic meals and food cooked with lasers, here are some restaurants offering out-ofthe-ordinary experiences to be savored.

A tiki, or Polynesian, theme is a popular motif for destination-themed dining. Full of rattan and rum, blowfish light fixtures and other exotic trappings, these South Seas-accessorized establishments were introduced to the West Coast in the 1930s, just as Johnny Weissmuller’s Tarzan movies hit a wave of popularity.

The 1950s and 1960s saw a renewed surge in tiki popularity, aided by The Reef, a concept eatery by theme-restaurant pioneer David Tallichet, as well as the construction of some endearing and enduring Polynesian palaces. Located in the Los Angeles outskirts of Rosemead, CA, Bahooka Family Restaurant (www.geocities.com/bahookarestaurant; 626-285-1241) opened more than 30 years ago, and really hasn’t changed much since. There are still more than 100 aquariums and 400 lights, plus copious bamboo and nautical knickknacks.

Forbes Island Restaurant If that’s not enough time with our friends from the deep, head down south to Ft. Lauderdale, FL, where Mai-Kai Restaurant (www.maikai.com; 954-563-3272) has been presenting Pan-Asian and tropical-inspired flavors since 1956. Across the restaurant’s wooden plank entrance and under its thatch roof are feasts of surf ‘n’ turf, subtropical plants and genuine Polynesian artifacts. Fiery dances and songs are also performed twice nightly.

In San Francisco, Forbes Island Restaurant (www.forbesisland.com; 415-951-4900) doesn’t bring the island life to landlubbers; it does exactly the opposite. This 100-foot long, 50-foot wide barge in the San Francisco Bay is made to look like an island—complete with white sand, palm trees and a lighthouse. Dine in an underwater room surrounded by antique nautical artifacts and portholes looking into the bay.

Island views are just some of the means by which a dollop of drama makes its way into a meal. For real deal theatrics, head to Seminole Gulf Railway (www.semgulf.com; 239-275-8487) in Ft. Myers, FL. On this murder mystery dinner train, a five-course meal is offered alongside a comical mystery.

Clue sheets are provided, and one “super sleuth” in each dining car wins a prize at the end of the night.

Bacon dish from Alinea In New York City, meanwhile, dinner theater is being reinvented at Monkey Town (www.monkeytownhq.com; 718-384-1369) in the arty neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Support has been strong for the 50-seat back room, which features communal seating surrounded by four giant screens and high-quality audio. The food and art aspects are equally important to the twentysomething crowd. “I wanted something more conceptual, where the food was as dynamic and important as the theatrical experience,” says founder Montgomery Knott.

The goal was also to put a new spin on the “black box” performance space, says Knott, who hosts VJs and electrocoustic performances alongside classic film and documentary screenings. A similar experience can be found at San Francisco’s Foreign Cinema (www.foreign.cinema.com; 415-648-7600), which screens foreign and independent films nightly in its industrial chic, open-air courtyard, while DJs spin in the adjacent bar.

Watching movies or solving a mystery while you dine are two ways to break from tradition, but partaking in a dish that could double as a science experiment is the next level in unusual eating. At two restaurants in Chicago, sights and smells, sound bites and even digital bytes play parts in redefining the emotional interaction people have with food. Moto (www.motorestaurant.com; 312-491-0058) is a laboratory for new flavor combinations and cooking techniques: Helium, particle guns and patent-pending polymer boxes for tableside cooking are just a few ways your food may be prepared.

Foreign Cinema Alinea (www.alinearestaurant.com; 312-867-0110) uses sculpturesque custom-built serving pieces that present dishes in unusual ways and are platforms for innovative flavors. “Th e Antenna,” for example, is a 14-inch self-supporting skewer that invites the guest to bend down and bite without using their hands.

Where visually arresting platings and visceral responses play their parts in Chicago’s white-hot scene, there is a concept on the far other end of the color spectrum on the West Coast. Inspired by an international trend, Opaque (www.darkdining.com; 800-710-1270) shines a light on dining in the pitch dark in Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco.

“For something as off -the-wall as eating in the dark, you need demographics that either have it all, or want it all,” says owner Benjamin Uphues, who brought the transatlantic concept to California. LA is the perfect city for this, especially since, as Uphues says, only in the dark can “a movie star have a quiet dinner in a busy place without being stared at.”

Dining in the dark isn’t the only concept from abroad represented on these shores. Since the late ’80s, a chain of restaurants in Stockholm, London and Palma, Spain, called Garlic & Shots has been serving foods with mandatory garlic. In San Francisco and LA since the early ’90s, The Stinking Rose (www.thestinkingrose.com; 415-781-7673 in San Francisco; 310-652-7673 in Los Angeles) imbues Californian-Italian cuisine with the namesake bulb. And why not: Gilroy, CA—touted as the Garlic Capital of the World—is 80 miles from San Francisco.

It’s likely, though, that the capital of concept restaurants is Tokyo, and in New York City you can find a Land of the Rising Sun import at NINJA New York (www.ninjanewyork.com; 212-274-8500). Th is contemporary Japanese fusion restaurant was designed as a feudal ninja castle, with maze-like hallways connecting small rooms.

“We have the houses designed in the age of Sengoku, our ninja uniforms, background music and lower lighting to help our guests leave New York and jump into the ninja world,” says Haruo Yazaki, the subterranean restaurant’s president.

Whether navigating a maze of rooms in a ninja castle or gazing at underwater life, successful out-of-the-ordinary dining experiences have to make you feel truly immersed; every last detail needs to be perfect to make you want to visit again. Chances are, once your eyes, ears and nose get a taste, you will.

ABOVE AND BEYOND

Trout roe
cone at
minibar minibar
WASHINGTON, D.C.
www.cafeatlantico.com; 202-393-0812
You have to ascend a flight of stairs to reach minibar, a six-seat restaurant within a restaurant located on the second floor of a historic building in the Penn Quarter. Offering more than 30 imaginative creations through progressive gastronomy, the chefs are all about breaking the rules of form and function.

The Sun Dial Restaurant, Bar & View
ATLANTA
www.sundialrestaurant.com; 404-589-7506
If there’s one device that really puts a special spin on dining, it’s the revolving restaurant in the Westin Peachtree Plaza. At 723 feet, it offers a 360-degree view and heady seasonal fare with Continental flourishes from 73 floors above Atlanta.

Aureole
LAS VEGAS
www.aureolelv.com; 702-632-7401
Artisan dry-aged beef and fresh seafood form the foundation of the contemporary, seasonal American cuisine, but the centerpiece of the experience is the four-story wine tower. Housing 10,000 bottles in a climate-controlled 42-foot Plexiglas enclosure, the theatrical attraction is inventoried on a handheld device and navigated by “Wine Angels,” who can be seen retrieving bottles by using a Mission: Impossible-style suspension system.