The latest – and currently largest – restaurant opened by The Absinthe Group, Bellota has become the sixth dining establishment in San Francisco’s Bay Area to install Meyer Sound Constellation acoustic system.
Bill Russell-Shapiro, proprietor of The Absinthe Group, is aware of the importance of the audio in creating a restaurant’s ambience – so when creating the elegant Spanish restaurant, he made sound a priority. ‘There’s a harmony to a great restaurant,’ he says. ‘Meyer Sound helped us achieve the vision I had for Bellota – which is an idea taken from a restaurant I found in Barcelona, and also by Rick’s Café Américain from the movie Casablanca.’
Constellation is a key component in the design of the 170-seat restaurant, which is built inside an airy former warehouse space where diners can observe Bellota’s acclaimed executive chef Ryan McIlwraith making paellas and grilled meats in an open kitchen.
‘Constellation is a flexible system that creates balance,’ says Jonny Raglin, who managed the Bellota project for The Absinthe Group. ‘It allows us to create different atmospheres at different times. We’re able to make it romantic and quiet in a certain portion of the space, and lively in another part of the space at the same time.
‘You can go into some restaurants where it’s so loud you can’t hear yourself talk,’ continues Raglin, sitting at the U-shape bar of Bellota. ‘Or you can be in a place that’s so quiet and lonely you don’t feel like you’re part of the action. Those are the polar ends. We wanted to find the best of both worlds and be able to control it.’
Raglin says he’s no sound expert, but he appreciates the way the Constellation’s tiny microphones, processors, and loudspeakers work together to take in and regenerate the sounds of the room to create a pleasing harmony. Sitting at the bar or in a booth, you can hear the person you’re talking to while absorbing the background accompaniment of the restaurant’s buzz.
‘Constellation shapes a sonic environment that’s peppered with things like clinking glasses, sizzling pans, a cocktail shaker, voices and laughter,’ Raglin says. ‘These are the things that entice us, that make us hungry and thirsty, that make us feel like we’re in a place that’s happening. If nothing stands out too much, that’s the ideal situation.’
At the heart of Bellota’s Constellation system is a D-Mitri digital audio platform housing the patented VRAS acoustical algorithm, which works in conjunction with 24 miniature cardioid microphones, 34 UP-4XP loudspeakers, and 12 MM-10XP subwoofers. Six Stella-8C installation loudspeakers cover the private dining room, where a sound-absorptive Libra acoustic image system bearing a photograph of flamenco dancers reduces reverberation. In the lounge, a system of two UP-4XP loudspeakers and one 500-HP subwoofer provides sound reinforcement for live music played on a grand piano, which is also distributed at appropriate volume levels throughout the dining room via Constellation.
Santa Rosa, California-based PCD installed the Constellation system.
More: www.meyersound.com
