Top 15 unusual restaurants to try around the world

Dining out is no longer just about enjoying a delicious meal together. With the success of click and collect and home delivery,customers are looking for a real restaurant experience when they go out. In fact, bringing a restaurant to life is more than just organizing one-off events: the cuisine must match the ambience and aesthetics of the place, offering guests a moment of life with a change of scenery. To this end, unusual restaurants are attracting more and more customers.

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In the restaurant business, unusual and innovative concepts are flourishing. It's no longer a question of simply offering a tasting of one's culinary talents, but of attributing an original soul to one's restaurant. Gastronomy is an experiential service, and customers can never be sure whether they will enjoy the meal, the service and the welcome before they go to the restaurant. Adopting a concept that is out of the ordinary not only helps to distinguish your establishment in the public eye, but also arouses curiosity and the desire to try it out. How do you open a restaurant with a concept that will make all the difference? What will arouse the interest of a public in search of sensations and culinary discovery?

To answer these questions, we've explored and catalogued 15 unusual and original restaurants from around the world, whose success is based on crazy concepts. These 15 ideas can be linked to the organization of an atypical service and welcome, the chosen location, the theme, the renewal of the customer experience or the originality of the food offered.

If you're going on vacation this summer, you might just come across one of these restaurants on your way!

First of all, some restaurateurs have opted to transform the management of their restaurants through atypical or even futuristic service.

1. Pazzi or the fully robotized pizzeria, coming soon to the Paris region

Credit: Le Parisien

Straight from France, Pazzi or the pizza-making robot, will officially be the world's first autonomous pizzeria at the end of October 2019.

The idea? You'll be able to order your pizza online via an app, or on the spot from a kiosk. The pizza will be entirely cooked by an intelligent robot, capable of concocting no fewer than 80 pizzas per hour. The ambition of the creators is to put the automation of tasks at the service of better eating. Excessive industrial production is banished from their strategy. The robot will prepare its beautiful pizzas using quality ingredients (organic vegetables, fair-trade products, well-sourced charcuterie) with the main aim of achieving a "crust rate" of almost zero, explains Alexandre Auriac, one of the project's founders, meaning you won't leave a crumb. The founders are also banking on the punctuality and error-free ordering of their future intelligent pizza maker. See you in Val d'Europe soon to discover the new phenomenon that's revolutionizing the restaurant business!

2. Kayabukiya Tavern in Tokyo

Credit: Kayabuki Tavern

If you're looking for an eyeful of handsome waiters, this is the place for you! At Kayabuki Tavern it's the little hairy creatures who do the serving! Named Yat-Chan and Fuku-chan, a pair of macaques provide the entertainment by reproducing the human gestures and behavior of their owners! They'll serve your napkins and drinks, and present you with the bill. Please note that, as they are both salaried employees, they only work two hours a day and make their living from guests' tips, who reward them with boiled soybeans.

3. The Rollercoaster Restaurant in Nuremberg (Germany)

Credit: Leila Nikamal

Here again, the service is atypical! At the Rollercoaster, you place your order via a touch-screen on which you choose your dish. So far, so good. But beware, once your plate is ready, it moves on its own on spiral rails to arrive smoothly on your table. In addition to this fantastic service, all dishes are made with high-quality organic ingredients.

Others have chosen to open their restaurants in absolutely extraordinary locations to ensure an unforgettable culinary experience. In this case, of course, it's the place that's the thief!

4. Ithaa, the underwater restaurant in the Maldives

Credit: Oh My Mag

Located in the heart of the Indian Ocean lagoon, Ithaa or "pearl" in the local language, is a restaurant offering a breathtaking view of the ocean floor. Enjoy lunch or dinner five meters below sea level, with a 180-degree panorama. Of course, the focus is on seafood products, integrated into a Western-style local gastronomy. It's a unique journey to the heart of the ocean, in a dry environment, but be careful not to drink too much, as the bill will be quite steep.

5. Dinner in the sky in over 40 countries

The brainchild of two Belgians, Dinner in the sky offers you a meal in the open air. Suspended in the air 50 meters above the ground, this table d'hôtes can accommodate no fewer than 22 guests around a flying table staffed by waiters and a chef. The view is obviously breathtaking, and the experience lasts around forty minutes.

6. Stedsans in the Woods in Sweden

Stedsans in the Woods is a true return to nature. Set in the heart of the forest, the cuisine is based on freshly-picked produce grown on site at the couple's permaculture farm. In a minimalist setting, everything is cooked over an open wood fire, far removed from technical and industrial progress. For an even more immersive experience, guests can spend the night in wooden cabins or Bedouin tents.

In addition to these unusual environments, restaurateurs can also choose to build their own decor and create a unique scenography to highlight a theme close to their hearts.

7. Ultraviolet in Shanghai

Credit: Scott Wright

Created by Michelin-starred French chef Paul Pairet, Ultraviolet is the world benchmark in immersive gastronomy. Once again, the famous chef has chosen to use technology to serve his culinary offering. Guests are invited to embark on an experiential journey involving all the senses. Sound montages, lighting effects, olfactory diffusions and 360° video projections enliven the dinner experience for the 10 guests. The idea is to offer them an unforgettable culinary experience in a sophisticated digital environment. On the menu, no fewer than 22 services are offered to punctuate the guests' tasting experience. And as everything has a price, these three extraordinary hours cost no less than 800 euros, one of the most expensive meals in the world.

8. Le Wagon Bleu in Paris

Credit: Le Wagon Bleu

Located between the Saint-Lazare train station and the Rome metro station, the Wagon Bleu is also a restaurant that draws its success from its impressive decor and theme. It offers meals in a former compartment of the legendary Orient Express. The blue velvet benches, high luggage racks and period travel accessories (old leather suitcases, hat boxes) place diners in an atmosphere worthy of Agatha Christie novels, while the cuisine is warm and inviting, with Corsican touches.

9. Alcatraz-Shibuya in Tokyo

For fans of horror films and nightmarish attractions of all kinds, Alcatraz is for you! A Japanese bistronomic restaurant, it was designed on the theme of the gloomy and gloomy. It depicts a prison hospital setting in which you eat your meal in an actual cell. The food and drinks on offer are presented in a way that's totally in keeping with the environment: beer is served in a plastic urinal and cocktails in a fake human skull. If you're into disaster scenarios, a patient's escape is mimed at each service, and watch out, all the lights go out.

Over and above these scripted themes, restaurateurs draw their original and atypical concept from the invention of a new customer experience. In this case, the customer is the protagonist of the experience, and must play along to enjoy the culinary adventure to the full.

10. In the dark in Paris

Credit: Guillaume Poiret

Located in the^4th arrondissement of Paris, Dans le noir is a restaurant that revolutionizes the customer experience, offering a meal in complete darkness. Designed to help diners understand the daily challenges faced by the visually impaired,guests are greeted as soon as they arrive in the dark, and are helped to their table by a staff half of whom are blind, without knowing in advance the combination of their dishes. A real challenge for those who are not used to eating blind, and who will be amazed at not being able to put into words the flavors and textures they are familiar with. The experience is a guaranteed laugh-out-loud session, all the more so as social exchanges are facilitated by the lights going out. So expect to confuse champagne and red wine, or veal and fish.

11. The Bunyadi in London

Credit: Evening Standard

The Bunyadi is the world's first naturist restaurant. Open only in summer, it offers diners a return to nature: the meal is eaten naked with no technological accessories - in this case, your smartphone - cutlery is edible, lighting is by candlelight and you sit on wooden logs. As for the menu, it reflects the restaurant's anti-materialistic concept, with ingredients guaranteed to contain no preservatives, colorants or chemicals, and all cooked over a wood fire. Finally, for those of you who are a little more modest but still wish to discover this adventure, a part of the restaurant is reserved for them, behind bamboo panels.

12. Le Café des Chats in Paris

Based on the Japanese concept of "neko bars", the café des chats in Paris is a restaurant featuring twelve small domestic felines that roam freely around guests. The idea is to offer guests quiet, de-stressing moments in the company of these furry little creatures, while enjoying entirely homemade cuisine. Offering a little time with animals to those who can't have one at home is the basis of the restaurant's concept.

The customer experience can be conceived as a real pillar of your restaurant, offering guests an active experience in addition to the culinary offer. For their part, some restaurateurs have chosen to focus on a culinary offering that is out of the ordinary, atypical and difficult to reproduce at home - and that's what makes them so successful!

13. Black Ant in New York

Credit: New York Magazine

At Black Ant, you'll find traditional Mexican cuisine such as classic enchiladas and delicious tacos. But that's not where the originality lies: most of the dishes on offer here are insect-based. These little creatures, with their miraculous alternative proteins for your health, will be part of your meal. On the menu, you'll find black ant guacamole, shrimps with grasshopper breadcrumbs and many other completely offbeat surprises.

14. Suri Restaurant in Paris

Credit: Suri Restaurant & Déli

In the heart of the Sentier district, on rue Réaumur, Suri is a new Parisian restaurant with an astonishing concept, where you'll eat only fermented ingredients. The restaurant relies on fermentation, an ecological method that reduces waste production and encourages the multiplication of probiotics, micro-organisms beneficial to health and digestion. You'll be able to enjoy most everyday dishes, as well as a range of lunch options. A la carte: pickles, vegetables, dairy products, soups, sandwiches, fish, pastries and drinks.

Beyond eating better, some restaurateurs have decided to go in the opposite direction, promoting ultra-processed food rich in fats and sugars, which they even describe as harmful to health...

15. Heart Attack Grill in Nevada

Heart Attack Grill is a restaurant that presents an XXL version of the famous fast-food the American way. Their leitmotiv: to offer dishes that are blatantly dangerous to health, such as hamburgers with over 8,000 kilocalories, recorded in the Guinness Book of Records, or gargantuan cones of French fries cooked with Saindoux. An added twist: the meal is free for anyone weighing more than 158.7 kilos - we wish you the worst! Completely mind-boggling, but let's hope this concept doesn't cross our borders!

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