The Schwab Foundation has named Stefan Zappa, founder of the blindekuh chain of restaurants, Swiss Social Entrepreneur 2007.

The jury said on Thursday it was won over by Zappa's "Blind-Liecht" charitable foundation and its innovative gastronomic concept, which involves diners eating in the darkness and being guided through their meals by blind and visually impaired waiters.

The "Blind-Liecht" charitable foundation was set up in December 1998 by Zappa, a partially sighted psychologist, with help from three other blind people.

The first "blindekuh" restaurant – the name is the German for the children's game blind man's buff – opened in Zurich in September 1999.

The concept has been copied successfully 18 times around the world. The Zurich restaurant was followed in April 2001 by the "Unsicht-Bar" in Cologne and in June 2002 by "Nocti Vagus" in Berlin.

blindekuh regularly receives requests from all around the world for help to put similar projects into practice.