Qualities such as “very customer focused” and “drive and energy” are logical characteristics to look for when recruiting waiters for a new restaurant.

When the restaurant in question is London's Dans le Noir, where patrons dine in the dark, those qualities take on even greater significance - and yet more so when the job spec also requires the unique qualification of being blind.

That was the recruiting task facing management at the Clerkenwell Green restaurant, where patrons order their meals in a lit reception area. Then it's a case of the blind leading the blind as guide-waiters take the patrons to their tables in the dark and also serve the drinks and food.

“It was difficult,” project manager Nicolas Chartier told Recruiter about recruiting the non-sighted waiters. “At first, people expected that these positions would be offered to sighted people.”

Candidates rounded up by organisations such as Action for Blind People were equally sceptical at first blink. “They laughed,” said John Murphy, the organisation's employment opportunities coordinator. “They really didn't believe it.”

Action for Blind People supplied six non-sighted candidates to the restaurant, which then held a week of training by “blind specialists” from Paris. Three more candidates are now on their way from the organisation to Dans le Noir. “Yes, there's a lot of turnover in the catering industry,” Murphy says, “but no one has quit yet.”