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The police in Barcelona recently raided a suspicious looking dry cleaners. It was late at night and something fishy was going on. People were going in. But they weren’t coming out. It had all the makings of a front for some illegal business. Turns out it was a front. But the cops didn’t find anything nefarious. Just people eating dinner. The World’s Gerry Hadden explains.

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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World.  The police in the Spanish city of Barcelona recently raided a suspicious looking dry cleaners.  It was late at night and something fishy was going on.  People were going in, but they weren’t coming out.  It had all the makings of a front for some illegal business.  It turns out it was a front, but the cops didn’t find anything nefarious, just people enjoying a pleasant dinner.  The World’s Gerry Hadden explains.

GERRY HADDEN: The Dontell dry cleaners hints at nothing culinary.  Clothes hang on hangers in the windows and there’s a price list for shirts, dresses and so on.  On a recent Friday night an elegant couple goes in.  They walk straight to a curtain alone one wall and push it aside.  Then they press their index fingers to some sort of scanning device and a secret door slides open.  They disappear inside and I follow them.  But to get pas that sliding door, you first have to register, get your own fingerprints into the system.  Then to the wall scanner.  The door opens again.  At the end of a long hallway, past the DJ booth, you reach a hip little restaurant; maybe 15 tables.  Everything high end design, the whole place lit up in bluish light.  A young couple, Joan and Leina, are just paying the check.  Ever since we met says Joan, we’ve been looking for original places to eat out, whether in Barcelona or wherever.  That’s the magic, finding places with charm.  I seems like people don’t know about this place, Leina adds.  You pass it on the street and you wouldn’t say hey, let’s eat here tonight because it doesn’t look like a restaurant.  Joan and Leina heard about Dontell from a friend which is how it’s supposed to work says Dontell’s manager, Christian Rodrigues.  He says for the price of a normal meal you get to come to a place that no one else would ever bring you to.  The idea was to create a secret, a sort of gift.  Secret, exclusive and part of a small trend.  Over the past few years clandestine eateries have been popping up in cities like Amsterdam, London and Berlin.  Dontell is one of at least three in Barcelona alone.  Did you write that down?  That password exchange gets you into another secret bistro called, literally, the Speakeasy.  It’s hidden behind a swank martini bar, but you enter through a separate service door.  You walk down a hall past boxes of stacked vegetables and the kitchen and you emerge into 1920′s Chicago.  Owner Javier de las Muelas says when he bought the martini bar this area was the store room.  One day I put a table back here, then the wine racks he says.  You can see that they’re all from the 1920′s.  We wanted to pay tribute to the era of prohibition in America, which gave rise to hidden bars or Speakeasies.  The Speakeasy is dark, cozy and posh.  Businessmen lunch here.  Politicians cut deal.  Like Dontell’s, it aims for an air of exclusivity, but it is a business, so they will give the password to anyone who asks.  Catarina Toscana says she’s a regular.  She says for me it’s not really clandestine anymore, but it is, without doubt, the best restaurant in Barcelona. The menu is great and always changing.  In other words, secrecy as a concept doesn’t work if the food stinks.  But there is one restaurant in town that puts its’ hidden nature above the menu.  It’s called Dans le Noir, or into the dark, and that’s what you do.  You got into the dark, the total dark.  This French chain wants you to know what it’s like to be blind, at least for one meal.  On a recent night just before one group gets led into the pitch black dining room, another group comes out gasping.  One diner got a bit nervous says owner Maite Sutter.  He has a heart condition, she says, it’s better that he came out.  Once inside, things do get unnerving.  I’ll abandon my fork and immediately begin eating with my fingers, because otherwise, I’d have been wearing my entrée.  It’s chilly and utterly devoid of light.  I feel like some eyeless cave dweller scrounging for lichen.  My fingers touch something leafy.  But the time it’s over, I’m exhausted.  Dans le Noir doesn’t expect many repeat customers, but the owners want the experience to stay with you.  A Barcelona student named Joan says he won’t forget.  I’d even say it was a little boring, he says.  I mean, after a few minutes you’re like okay, now what?  But I suppose the point is to make you think.  If you make it to all three of these restaurants in Barcelona, but you still want more, you won’t have to wait too long.  The owners of Dontell dry cleaners plan to open another place with a fake business out front.  This time, a hair salon.  So if you happen to pass a barber shop open very late and no one is getting a haircut, your next dinner could be just a fingerprint scan away.  For The World, I’m Gerry Hadden in Barcelona.

WERMAN: You can go inside a few of Barcelona’s clandestine restaurants with Gerry Hadden and the rooms are lit.  He sent us a video to go with this story.  You can find that at the world dot org.

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