Five of the world’s most unusual

restaurants
posted in Strange . posted by Florin Nedelcu on July 10, 2008 . 17 Comments

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If you’re looking to spice up your eating experience and you aren’t afraid to try something completely
new than you might want to check out these restaurants, they’re all anything but ordinary and boring.

Dinner in the Sky

Well technically it can be dinner, lunch, breakfast or any other meal you like, as long as you have the
money and can secure a surface of 500 square meters to install a huge crane. Dinner in the Sky offers
people the opportunity to turn something ordinary into a unique and memorable event. Dinner In The
Sky is a Belgian based novelty restaurant which used a crane to hoist its diners, table, and waitstaff
150 feet into the air.[1] Forbes magazine called it one of the world's ten most unusual restaurants.
[1]
 Dinner in the Sky has operated in various cities around the world including Paris[2] and Las Vegas[3]s
Basically you and 21 other people get the chance to enjoy a fine a meal and each-others company at a
table suspended 50 meters high in the air by a huge crane. What’s great about this service is that it can
be held in any place, be it public (if you want to show off) or private as long as you get the proper
authorization.

If you want to impress a special someone with a special diner, this is definitely an option worth
considering.

Photo credits: 1, 2

Toilet Restaurant
 Taiwan — Modern Toilet  Restaurant

 Modern Toilet Restaurant (

No kidding, this is a restaurant! The theme of this restaurant is the bathroom. Eating here is a very
extraordinary and interesting experience to say the least. You will never imagine two wholly extreme
things can link together. All the seats are close-stool; tables are bathtub or sink with a glass on the
top; walls are decorated with many shower nozzles on it. Every bowl, dish is the sharp of bathtub or
toilet. Well…can you stand for it?
There are already 12 Modern Toilet restaurants in Taiwan, and internationally inHong
Kong and Japan too. Meals in this restaurant are Japanese-Taiwanese style. The food comes in your
own hot toilet bowl with a little fake “poop” on one side. Their popular meals are different kinds of
Shabu Shabu, served with a side of vegetables, soup, and rice.  You are also able to choose different
ingredients in the Shabu Shabu, such as beef, pork, or vegetables.

 For me, the

most delicious Shabu Shabu in this restaurant is with the milk soup base.  The ingredients in this hot
pot are full with the flavour of milk. It surprised me that hot milk does not taste any bad smell of the
milk. On the other hand, the milk makes every food taste smooth and a little bit sweet. If you want to
try some new stuff, I highly recommend this one.

 The second Shabu Shabu that I think is good is the curry

one.  The curry is Japanese style, so it is not spicy but has a strong taste of curry. I like to serve curry
with beef instead of pork. 
  Dessert of ice-cream comes in a squat toilet.

 They also provide a big bowl of dessert that can feed

several people.  These desserts are sliced ice with sauce and serve with ice-cream. However, I am
not really impressed with the look of the dessert. It’s kind of disgusting like mixed everything in it.

So, don’t go to the wrong toilet!

Let me just start by saying that eating is not the first thing that comes to mind when you walk into this
place. But ever since The Toilet Restaurant opened in Taipei, Taiwan it has become one of the city’s
major attractions and the owner is now thinking of opening an entire network of restaurants all across
Asia.

In the Toilet Restaurant everything makes you think only of…well a toilet. Clients sit on toilet bowl-
shaped stools, eat their food out of dishes resembling male urinals, toilet bowls or bathtubs. Even the
food itself is designed to look like…you know, and if you don’t check out the chocolate ice-cream in the
photo. I for one wouldn’t go there to grab some grub, but apparently kids and teenagers love it.

I wonder what the toilets look like in the Toilet Restaurant, restaurants maybe?

Photo credits: 1, 2

Dans Le Noir?

If you’re ever in Paris and want to try one of the most original dinning experiences the city of love has to
offer, than you must try Dans Le Noir? restaurant. It doesn’t look very impressive from the outside but
it’s the only place where you can have a meal in total darkness. Paris' Dans Le Noir leaves its
patrons literally in the dark. Run by a primarily blind and visual-impaired staff, founders
Edouard de Broglie and Etienne Boisrond believe that the act of consuming food
becomes more satisfying when you're relying on any other sense than sight — now taste,
smell and touch can have their moment in the spotlight. The concept was such a success
that Broglie and Boisrond recently opened outposts in both London and Moscow.

As soon as you enter Dans Le Noir? you find yourself in a cocktail lounge where you can enjoy a drink
and choose what you’re going to eat, before being guided into a dark quiet room by a waiter. Once
there you discover you actually can’t see a thing and you can only hear the whispers of the other
guests. You also have the chance of ordering the “surprise menu” so you can discover what you are
eating for yourself. Dinning can be pretty tricky in these circumstances and if you’re not careful, it can
get pretty messy.

No need to worry about your purse or wallet being stolen in the darkness as the restaurant has infrared
cameras precisely to prevent this.

Photo credits: 1, 2

D.S. Music Restaurant

Don’t even mind the name, D.S. is a restaurant that doesn’t have much to do with music, it is actually a
hospital-themed establishment, probably the only one in the world. Just like the Toilet Restaurant, you
can find D.S. Music Restaurant in Taipei, a town where the bizarre is very popular it seems.
From the moment you walk into the lobby, a wheelchair lets you know this isn’t a conventional
restaurant and the crutches hanging on the walls, the hospital beds used as tables and the waitresses
dressed as nurses make you feel you’re in a genuine hospital.

The owner admits they can’t compete with the more sophisticated food of other high-end restaurants of
Taipei, so they had to emphasize the service. And it’s a pretty good strategy, many people would rather
serve their meals on a hospital bed and drink vodka from an i.v. rather than have dinner in a luxury
restaurant.

Restaurant: DS Music Restaurant

Address: 7 Xinsheng N Rd Sec 3, Zhongshan Dist, Taipei (台北市中山區新生北路三段７號) 
Telephone: (02) 2587 3226 
Open: 6pm to 2:30am; Fri, Sat 6pm to 4am Average meal: NT$300 to NT$500 per person 
Details: English and Chinese menu; major credit cards accepted Web site: www.drs.com.tw
(Chinese only)

By Chris Pechstedt  /  CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

Hospital food never tasted so good.
PHOTO COURTESY OF DS MUSIC RESTAURANT

When I stepped into DS Music Restaurant, I found it to be an extremely well-put-together,

professional establishment with good food and a pleasant atmosphere that is night-lifey but not
overwhelming. This disturbed me.

The reader is invited to consider the nurse fetish. It is an institution that lies at the heart of DS.
And so I entered DS prepared to immerse myself in sleaze and then write ironically about it.
What I found, though, was a disquietingly congruous marriage of unabashed hedonism and well-
funded good taste.

Overall, DS looks like many other posh restaurant-and-bars, with lots of spot lighting, funny-
shaped chairs, and clear alcohol bottles lit from underneath. Except that many of the tables look
like sleek hospital beds, there are a few wheelchairs and crutches sitting around, backlit X-rays
decorate some walls, and above each table hangs a big "IV drip," which functions like a small
keg. And then, of course, there are nurses everywhere you look.

The hospital theme is pervasive, but somehow subtle, or at least natural. I never thought I would
say this, but it turns out that a wheelchair does not look out of place next to a wall of Smirnoff Ice
bottles. There is something appealing about the audacity of taking a concept as (someone has to
say it) flagrantly trashy as this and making something so cool out of it. To top it off, the food is
good.

The menu consists of lightly Westernized Chinese, Japanese and Thai, with an inexplicable but
not unwelcome Polynesian flare running through the presentation. The sashimi, for example, is
served on a mountain of ice covered with leaves and flowers. The "Fire Pheonix Beer (sic)" (火鳳
牛柳) is a successful beef-and-pineapple stir-fry served inside a hollowed-out half pineapple.

As is probably apparent in that last sentence, the English on the menu is more color commentary
than viable translation. Some items -- like the pretty-good XO sauce stir-fry prawn ball (served
on a bed of water convulvus) -- are more or less what they sound like, but the menu really isn't
navigable without some knowledge of Chinese. Nor are the waitresses hired for their English.

Photo credits: 1, 2

Ithaa Restaurant
 Conrad Maldives Rangali Island - 5*Deluxe
Ithaa Underwater Restaurant

The first underwater restaurant of its kind in the world

Contemporary fusion maldivian cuisine with western and asian influences
The Ithaa Restaurant sits 15 feet below the waves of the Indian Ocean, surrounded
by a coral reef and encased in clear acrylic, offering diners 270-degrees of panoramic
underwater views.
The restaurant is reached by a wooden walkway from the nearby over-water Sunset
Grill Restaurant, and seats just 14 people for exclusive dining with a real difference.

Ithaa Restaurant - Rangali Island - Conrad Maldives Resort & Spa

Set in the natural paradise of the Maldives, Ithaa is the world’s first underwater restaurant that allows its
visitors to enjoy their meal and observe the beautiful underwater scenery at the same time. The mostly
acrylic restaurant stands at 5 meters bellow the sea level offering its customers a 270 degrees
panoramic view of the coral reef that surrounds it.
Ithaa can only accommodate 14 people at a time so be sure to book your table in advance if you plan to
spend your holiday at the Hilton Maldives complex. It will cost you up to $300 but at least you know
you’ve eaten in a truly exclusive location.