TAKING THE DIN WITH YOUR DINNER

A few Santa Monica residents have told me that when they drive down Main Street in the evening, they can hear the roar from the restaurant Chinois on Main. In their cars. With the windows rolled up. On a weeknight.

Noisy restaurants are no longer unusual. With the proliferation of fine food and fancy restaurants, with the emergence of Chef as Star, we’ve also had to contend with the Restaurant as Art--loud art. Apparently the only fitting environment for nouvelle cuisine is a soaring, airy, hard-edged palace.

It’s a big deal: All this restaurant din has been measured and quantified, reviled and decibel-metered by restaurant writers from coast to coast. But while everyone complains about the noise, it seems as if each new restaurant is louder than the last. This is no accident or coincidence; it is a diabolical plot. These restaurants are meant to be loud.

Here is what some of the perpetrators--restaurant owners and architects--have to say for themselves.

Perhaps the most successful high-decibel restaurants (certainly the most famous) are Spago and the already mentioned Chinois on Main. Both were designed by Barbara Lazaroff, now wife to the two restaurants’ founding chef, Wolfgang Puck.

Lazaroff makes no apologies for her reverberating rooms. She’s currently designing a restaurant/tapas bar near Palm Springs, “And I’m not about to put a quiet restaurant there, “ she said. In general, “I think people want a fun, exciting atmosphere. When you walk into a space and there’s no noise at all, you feel like, ‘It’s dead in here.’ People relax in different ways; in a quiet restaurant, you could be afraid to laugh out loud.”

At Chinois on Main, there is no fear of laughter--and little chance of meaningful chat. All of the modern acoustical nightmares are present in one extravagant room: brick walls, ceramic tile floors, open bar and kitchen (with at least 10 chefs), high skylight. And, Lazaroff said, it’s much quieter now than when it first opened. “I spent $35,000 on a new exhaust hood,” she said. “It made an amazing difference.”

While one argument for high-tech gloss contends that it’s a more affordable style for a new, untried restaurant owner, high-hard-and-noisy can also be extremely expensive. It cost a bundle to make Chinois what it is.

Josh Schweitzer, partnered with David Kellen in the architectural firm of Schweitzer Kellen, designed the one of the loudest restaurants in town, the Border Grill, and two heavy-decibel contenders, Rondo and City Restaurant. “It’s not so much what we do,” Schweitzer says, “as what we don’t do. The old style ‘rug joints,’ with red drapes, red-flocked wallpaper, red carpets, people aren’t so much interested in that anymore; restaurants are trying to be more artistic, to make statements about everything, not just their food.”

These “statements” include “providing a space that’s visually more complex but clean and open,” Schweitzer said. “As a result, when you pack people in, you get more of a party environment,”

This party atmosphere, said Schweitzer, appeals especially to young Angelenos because this city “lacks the club environment a lot of other major cities support. Here, the restaurants are trying to be the clubs. The young people want that excitement.

“Besides, when you take a restaurant with 1,000 square feet and cram 50 people into it, you could have rugs everywhere, it’s still going to be a little bit loud,” Schweitzer added.

“Little bit loud” is a charitable description of the Border Grill at high noon. Long and narrow, with high ceiling and tables crowded close together, the Border Grill is loud . Around the corner on La Brea, the City Restaurant (run by the former owners of the Border Grill, back when it was the City Cafe) embodies all the handsome design, imaginative food and loud acoustics that make these party environments jump.

A few words about acoustics: Sound is measured in decibels on a logarithmic scale, not unlike Richter’s earthquake scale. While 70 decibels seem comfortable to the human ear, 82 decibels will be 10 times as loud, and 92 decibels will be 10 times louder than 82 (some rock concerts have achieved 100-plus decibels). There are certain acoustical considerations in designing any space, whether restaurant, office or hospital ward: High ceilings, hard surfaces and wide open spaces allow sound to bounce around, unobstructed and undiminished. Low ceilings, soft or absorptive materials (those dreaded carpets, drapes and wall coverings) will absorb or soften the sound. Any obstruction, even a pillar, will interrupt a sound wave, deflecting and reducing it. Every architect knows this. If restaurant owners (and patrons--we have to share some of the blame) wanted intimate, womb-like rooms, then we’d be eating in intimate, womb-like restaurants. Instead, the prevalent style is two-story concrete. And that’s the interior .

72 Market Street in Venice, designed by Morphosis, is largely concrete. The front room, with open bar, has a two-story ceiling (sound familiar?); the interplay of angles and textures is an architectural delight, the food is beyond reproach, and the sound level is Grand Central Rush Hour. A familiar sight at 72 Market Street and others of its ilk: diners leaning in toward each other, lips moving near opposite ears. They’re not lovers--just trying to hear and be heard.

“We try to make (the rooms) as quiet as possible,” project architect Martin Mervel said of Morphosis’ work, “but it’s a challenge to keep things quiet in a public place. People now expect more of an animated atmosphere.” Morphosis, also designed Angeli in West Hollywood. The restaurant is lively, but conversation is possible. “We used acoustic material in the new addition,” Mervel said. “There has to be moderation. There is an obligation to be responsible in dealing with sound.”

There are, of course, still a few dining emporia that provide those fondly remembered pre-”party” environments. L’Orangerie, L’Hermitage, Michael’s, Rex--the four most expensive restaurants in town--are so posh they inspire whispers, not shouts. Of the newer establishments, Celestino’s in Beverly Hills is praised for its food and its acoustics. “We had very bad acoustics here at first, but we put in a new ceiling,” said owner-chef Celestino Drago, “so people can talk and enjoy the food.”

But the raucous restaurants, it would seem, are the wave of the present, and there’s no significant change in sight. They are the signposts of future non-communication, when food and conversation will no longer be a restaurant’s bread and butter. What will become of expense-account dining when people really need to talk business? And how will the courtship ritual be affected by the loss of the get-acquainted dinner?

A friend of mine, when recently asked for a Melrose Avenue restaurant recommendation, immediately replied, “The Border Grill.” Then she grimaced and said, “No, no, forget that; it’s too loud. You won’t be able to talk.”

“Talk?” responded the restaurant seeker. “I’ll be out with a gorgeous bimbo. I don’t want to talk to her.”