Do you remember how you always had to be quiet at the dinner table when you were young but never understood why? Now that you’re all grown up, with children of your own, you probably wish you could have just one more of those quiet dinners. If quiet is what you seek, you’re in luck, as now you can enjoy a four-course meal in complete silence at the Eat restaurant in Greenpoint, Brooklyn where you have to be quiet and enjoy the food, whether you like it or not.
Nicholas Nauman, head chef and curator of the silent-dinner experience, got the idea for the event during a trip to India where he admired the Buddhist monks having their breakfast every morning without uttering a word. In a competing market where restaurant owners are coming up with the most unusual concepts to attract customers – such as dining in pitch-dark, the 28-year-old thought this idea would gain popularity. “It’s just an opportunity to enjoy food in a way you might not have otherwise,” he says. This way, he hopes to “reconfigure the relationship between a space and food” by forcing customers to focus on their plates rather than on the countless distractions that occur while sitting at the dinner table.
