The most interesting restaurants that you won’t want to miss out on
When it comes to deciding where to dine, the quality of food is always the main factor. Tucking into a delicious meal is always the most memorable part of the night for many people like myself, but it does raise a question: should it be?
Many factors play into what kind of experience you have from a restaurant or bar. Restaurants and resorts are beginning to realise this more and more now, and are beginning to offer more experience dining.
With that in mind, here are our top 10 unique dining experiences that we think you shouldn’t miss out on.
10 – HR Giger Museum Bar
We start the list with a creepy contender. HR Giger Museum Bar was (believe it or not) created by H.R Giger. This boney bar opened up in 2003 in Switzerland, and still offers diners delicious meals in Giger’s “alien” biochemical style. Open all year round, this experience dining is not to be missed by anyone interested in the unusual and haunting.
9 – Dans le Noir?
Dans le Noir? offers something we’ve never really asked for but should all try at least once in our lives: dining in the dark. We’re not talking dim-lit dining here, we’re talking real pitch-black darkness.
This dining experience encourages guests to really explore their meal, enhancing flavours and textures as they explore food without sight. This experience also makes for a great bonding and team building activity, making it a hotspot for company dining.
Dans le Noir? has kitchens all over Europe, as well as in New Zealand and Egypt, so it’s easier than ever to dine in the dark today.
8 – Cat Café
For our feline lovers out there, we have the cat café. These adorable dining experiences exist all over the world from different companies, but they all have one thing in common: cats.
Sit back and enjoy a nice cup of coffee while you watch cats run around beside you. If you get the opportunity, you can even play with or stroke the cats as they bounce around their home. While this experience might not exactly be unique, we still firmly believe that it’s one everyone should experience at least once.
7 – Rollercoaster Restaurants
Looking for something a bit more thrilling? Rollercoaster restaurants might just be the thing for you.
What could possibly be thrilling about receiving your food? Well, the Rollercoaster Restaurant company offers many of the most exciting dining experiences around. Imagine your food hurdling towards you on tracks, twisting and turning around every obstacle and making its way through twists and turns.
Rollercoaster restaurants are opening up all over the world with new experiences set to open in China, South Korea, France and Mexico over the coming years. The UK even has its own experience with the Alton Towers Resort Rollercoaster Restaurant.
This exciting experience isn’t to be missed by anyone that considers themselves a thrillseeker or rollercoaster enthusiast.
6 – Disney Restaurants
This might seem like a generic entry to our list, but it’s with good reason.
It’s a fact that Disney offers great experience dining at their parks and resorts. From dining in your favourite movie hotspots to dining with characters, you’re sure to be immersed in these dining experiences. Even the food is themed to match your chosen restaurant, such as the Quantum Pretzel from Antman themed restaurant Pym’s Test Kitchen – a massive 453.8-gram pretzel scaled up.
If you’re a lover of Disney movies, we suggest you make your way to one of their resort restaurants for an experience you’ll never forget.
5 – Tsavo Lion Restaurant
What could possibly be better than dining with cats at a cat café? How about dining among real-life lions?
Tsavo Lion Restaurant at the Mara River Safari Lodge offers close encounters during dinner. Guests are seated beside a lion enclosure, offering stunning views of the animals while dining on an exquisite meal. The experience is completely safe and isn’t to be missed by any lion lover or thrillseeker.
4 – Ali Barbour’s Cave Restaurant
Kenya offers one of the most romantic dining experiences around with Ali Barbour’s Cave Restaurant.
Enjoy your dining experience in this candle-lit cave thought to be 120,000 to 180,000 years old. At night, dine beneath the stars as the cave features an open ceiling, making for one of the most breathtaking dining experiences around.
3 – The Snowcastle of Kemi
You might want to grab your coat for this one. The Snowcastle of Kemi is an experience built entirely from ice and offers hotel rooms and more importantly a restaurant.
Dig into a three-course meal and indulge yourself in some warm, arctic dishes on tables made completely of ice. If that’s not enough, you can even enjoy homemade juice from thick “glasses” made entirely of ice too! If you’re interested in this dining experience, you can even make a day out of it by experiencing the other attractions the Snowcastle of Kemi has on offer, such as their ice slide.
2 – Le Panoramic
Adding to our list of stunning restaurants, Le Panoramic is set up on the summit of French mountain le Brévent. Offering a breathtaking view of Mont Blanc, this restaurant is surprisingly accessible via gondola and cable car and offers delicious meals such as pasta, soups and steak. If you’re interested in an experience like no other, Le Panoramic is for you.
1 – Ristorante Grotta Palazzese
Finally, here’s what we consider the most romantic and breathtaking restaurant experience around: Ristorante Grotta Palazzese.
Grotta Palazzese is a hotel based in Italy and features the famous terrace restaurant based in a natural cave. Dined in since the 1700s, the cave is also famous for artist Louis Jean Desprez’s watercolour ‘View of the Grotta di Palazzo with Banquet’.
The romantic terrace looks out to the sea on one side and to the other inward to more chambers of the cave, featuring something for everyone. Here, you can enjoy quality meals with the sea-viewing cave’s focus being on fish. If you’re looking for a beautiful dining experience with someone important to you, this is where you should go.
If you enjoyed this blog, consider checking out one of our others on Food Tech Digest.
Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be exploring different dining experiences as well as how your restaurant could benefit from featuring unique experiences. Worried you’ll miss out? Consider subscribing to the Food Tech Digest weekly roundup today. Every Friday, we’ll send you a neat newsletter with all the blogs and articles from that week, so you never have to miss a thing.
