Jules Jones

We went out for dinner with friends last night. Food - excellent. Service -- excellent. Wine -- excellent, according to the drinkers. Ambience -- um...

The restaurant in question is the newly opened branch of The Fat Loaf, which specialises in traditional British dishes prepared with local high quality ingredients.
( nom nom nom )
It was a very enjoyable evening, save for one thing -- the noise level. The restaurant has hard surfaces all round, including a stone floor. It's noisy, and it's an echoing noise. The back room was only a quarter full when we arrived for the early sitting, and at that point was quite comfortable. But as more people arrived, the noise level went up, and it got into that vicious circle where people raise their voices to be heard over the noise from nearby tables, increasing the noise level, so people speak up even more. This was not helped by the sound level on the background music being gradually ramped up.

I know that some people enjoy sitting in a restaurant where there's a clattering din, and that some restaurants deliberately aim to be noisy, thinking that it gives a "vibrant and popular place" feeling. I don't enjoy it. It's uncomfortable, I have to strain to hear other people, and I end up getting a headache from the sheer level of noise. And I left early, while the rest of my party stayed. I really enjoyed the food, but I'm not eager to go back there, simply because of the noise level over the last twenty minutes or so before it drove me out. I strongly suspect that the Fat Loaf owners are amongst those who think that sort of din is a nice ambience, but they lost a potential repeat customer last night because of it. I'll probably go back there, but not as often as I might have without that hazard.