Why don’t more restaurants use unique concepts for their food, service, décor, or overall execution? After all, buying, preparing and serving food is one of the most personal forms of expression for those engaged. Restaurants aren’t retail clothing stores or airports. They’re far more unique, and the concept within them should reflect the people who created them.
The openers and operators of restaurants are creative people. As a result, there are some unique restaurant concepts around the world. A few of them are well-known. For example, Dans Le Noir in London is a restaurant that offers dining in complete darkness. The idea is that depriving guests of their reliance on sight emphasises food’s taste, texture, sound and smell. Many servers and waitstaff are visually impaired and have been trained to serve guests without relying on pictures.
Or there is Inamo, also in London, where guests order food through an interactive digital menu projected onto a screen. The same high-tech touch-screen tabletop lets guests customise their “tablecloth”, watch their meal prepared by the chef on personal cameras, or play interactive games with dining companions.
For true uniqueness, how about Dinner in the Sky, a 22-person table suspended in mid-air by a crane at the height of fifty meters by a team of professionals? A personal chef and waiter stand at the centre of the oval-shaped table, allowing guests to experience a gourmet meal simultaneously and (potentially) height sickness.
The independence and risk-taking required to open an originally-conceived restaurant are truly admirable. Like many businesses, success often comes in following a formula, if not a corporate concept. This business’s nominal success rates—especially since 2008—make most operators willing to let others take risks when developing ideas. These days, there is enough risk in the mere fact of opening a restaurant.
However, with so many restaurants flooding markets in recent years, it may be necessary to generate something that stands out from the financial crisis the crowd despises. So, it is worth considering what your unique restaurant concept would be. Would it be something like the fabled rude-server concept, in which the servers criticise the guests at every opportunity and slam entrée plates down on the table? Unfortunately, that has been mastered—at the world-famous Ed Debevic’s in Chicago. In this ‘50s throwback diner, the surly servers smack gum and toss salty one-liners while coolly pulling the pencil from their hair bun to write down orders. Guests are as likely to hear “Eat and get out” as they enjoy a cheeseburger and soda.
If your concept is a dining room decorated like a bathroom, this has, unfortunately, been done too. The Modern Toilet Restaurant in Taiwan asks guests to enjoy their meals on a glass-top table while sitting on actual toilets. Two-top tables are situated along the wall against urinals, and the plate and glassware are all fabricated to resemble bathroom accessories and products (we’ll generously leave it at that). Not sure how the actual bathroom is decorated.
You might also try Absolut Ice Bar and Restaurant in Stockholm, where the interior is built entirely from ice (bars, glasses, barstools, walls, everything). Guests are given fur jackets and capes to avoid freezing temperatures before entering and can only stay for 40 minutes. The interior is lit with deep blue, and guests mostly sip on Absolut products before being asked to leave. Also, the food could be better. Otherwise, it sounds like a successful concept.
Finally, there is the VIP Zone in Russia, where the décor, uniforms, plateware and glassware are all replications of an actual Soviet-era gulag. Guests eat on wooden planks with clanky aluminium utensils while attractive servers dressed in striped prison garb stand nearby, waiting to present a fingerprint-smudged bill. Meanwhile, portraits of Soviet dictators line the wall, also staring while guests eat.
It may sound like all the unique restaurant concepts have been taken, but many more have yet to be developed. While it may sound like a risk that might not be worth the reward, unique concepts in this industry will surely get attention across regions and for many years.
