If cannabalistic sushi, Buns & Guns and soft serve in toilet bowls weren’t enough for you, never fear – there are at least a dozen more bizarrely themed restaurants around the world to gawk at. Whether you’d like your server to dress up like your boss so you can beat him up, enjoy being ambushed by ninjas in a dark alley or just want to be treated like a pretty, pretty princess, these restaurants deliver some of the weirdest atmospheres in the world.
Calico Cat Café
(images via: Global Post)
The first menu you’ll see at Calico Cat Café in Tokyo has nothing to do with food: it’s the cat selection. But you won’t be dining on any of these adorable felines – they’re just there to provide some companionship while you sip a cup of tea. The watchful staff ensure that guests treat the cats respectfully, and provide complimentary bags of dried cat food that can be used to attract your desired playmate. For many Tokyo residents, owning a cat isn’t realistic, so the city’s 30-odd cat cafés give them a chance to enjoy some “commitment-free cat stroking”.
Alice in Wonderland
(image via: La Carmina)
Fall down the rabbit hole into an Alice in Wonderland-themed restaurant based on the story by Lewis Carroll, with wait staff decked out in light blue and white checkered pinafores and walls painted with strange, vaguely Alice-inspired imagery. The coasters are playing cards, little bowls of snacks are decorated with signs that say ‘Eat Me’ and you summon your server with a little brass bell. The menu features a Japanese spin on French and Italian cuisine and a large variety of bite-size appetizers.
Devil Island Prison Restaurant
(images via: China Sales Training Network)
The owner of the Devil Island restaurants in China reportedly wanted to scare people away from a life of crime by showing them just how rough prison life can be – through a jail-themed restaurant where you’re led to your table in handcuffs and served fried coffin-shaped bread. Each table is surrounded by rusting prison bars, and you’re served by waiters in black-and-white striped uniforms. A similar restaurant in Beijing is misleadingly named ‘Zen Cool’.
Ninja New York
(images via: NYCgo.com)
Some of New York’s most creative fusion food is served in a rather unusual restaurant, one in which no expense was spared to create an atmosphere that one reviewer described as “Ninja Disneyland”. Guests are led to the subterranean eatery through a “secret path” where “ninjas” lurk in the shadows, and brought to a table housed within a dungeon-like chamber. The ninja waiters perform magic tricks that extend into the meal, like sauces that catch on fire.
Dinner in the Sky
(images via: The Daily Mail)
Not everyone can stomach eating a meal while dangling 150 feet above the ground from a crane, even if you’re not usually afraid of heights. At Dinner in the Sky in Belgium, diners are strapped into chairs, raised to half the height of Big Ben and served meals like ham salad and sauteed prawns that are cooked in a small oven in the center of the structure.
Dinner in a Hospital
(images via: Spot Cool Stuff)
Taipei is known for its variety of strangely themed dining establishments, but this one might just take the cake. Your surreal experience starts with the name, D.S. Music Restaurant, which in no way hints at what’s actually inside. Wait staff dressed in nurse uniforms push you to your table in wheelchairs, where your drinks are served from an IV-like contraption hanging from the ceiling. The ‘nurses’ ask trivia questions, and if you get them right, you’re rewarded with shots of a tasty drink squirted into your mouth with a syringe. It only gets stranger from there. Once you’re done eating, a female staff member in a deranged ballerina costume dances on your table.
Rising Sun Anger Release Bar
(image via: Sydney Morning Herald)
It’s a tough, stressful world out there, and there’s only so much you can take before you just have to let out some anger and frustration. If using restaurant staff as punching bags sounds like a good anger management tactic to you, check out the Rising Sun Anger Release Bar in Nanjing City, China where customers pay a fee to beat up staff, scream and break glasses. The staff, which dons protective gear, will dress up to resemble the person you’d really like to physically assault. The bar is said to be especially popular with Chinese women who work in the service industry.
Dick’s Last Resort Restaurant
(image via: Dick’s Last Resort)
If you’re more of a masochist than a sadist, Dick’s Last Resort Restaurant may be just up your alley. With locations all over America including Chicago, Boston and Dallas, Dick’s will satisfy your impulses to be treated rudely, called names and ridiculed by restaurant staff. If that sounds like everyday dining to you, rest assured that Dick’s will kindly write out these insults and put them on dunce caps which you’re obligated to wear while eating.
Wizard of the Opera
(images via: Diamond Dining)
Billed as “gorgeous gothic dining”, the Wizard of the Opera restaurant in Tokyo has a vaguely Phantom of the Opera-based theme, with lots of sumptuous red velvet and the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical soundtrack on repeat. Among the dishes served are smoked salmon shaped like a rose, and the staff will even write the word ‘opera’ in chocolate on your plate.
A380 In-Flight Kitchen
(images via: The Age)
Mmm, airplane food. If you just can’t get enough of eating on airplanes but you’re sick of going through security and paying expensive airfare to do it, you may want to visit the A380 In-Flight Kitchen in Taipei. The restaurant resembles the inside of a plane, with faux oval-shaped windows, baggage compartments and speckled blue seats complete with headrests. Waitresses dress like flight attendants, and “passengers” have much more than just chicken or fish to choose from.
Yellow Treehouse Café
(images via: Yellow Treehouse)
Built around a redwood tree near Auckland, New Zealand, the Yellow Treehouse Café will fulfill all of your fantasies about treehouse life, and then some. Designed by Pacific Environment Architects as part of a marketing campaign for the area’s yellow pages, the café is no longer open for dinner but can be rented for private parties.
Princess Heart
(images via: News on Japan)
Some girls never outgrow their princess fantasies, and if you live in Japan, you can luxuriate in all the frilly pink princess regalia you can stomach whenever you want at the Princess Heart restaurant. Customers are led to a full-length mirror where they’re apparently supposed to ask who’s the fairest one of all, before taking a seat in a throne and being crowned. Women can drag their male partners along, but single men aren’t allowed.
