Bars, restaurants and hotels · Edinburgh · 2024

The Spanish Butcher, Edinburgh: zoned audio and AV control for a new city-centre restaurant

The second Spanish Butcher, in Edinburgh, needed sound that suits a steak restaurant at lunch, at dinner and late on a Saturday, in a room with high ceilings and a layout that does not forgive a careless speaker. Lairds designed, installed and calibrated the audio, the control and the network behind it.

Handed over

Calibrated, with staff trained

The building

The Spanish Butcher opened in Glasgow first, and Lairds installed that restaurant on a late-night programme in the week before it opened. When the same group brought the restaurant to Edinburgh, we were asked in early, while the room was still a shell. That changes what is possible: speaker positions, containment and cable routes were decided on the drawings and installed while the ceilings and wall linings were open, rather than negotiated with a finished interior.

The room is tall, with hard surfaces, a long bar, a main dining floor and private spaces off it. A single audio zone in a room like that is either too loud at the bar or inaudible at the far tables, and the private rooms need to be able to run at their own level, or off, while the main floor is busy. The brief was audio that fits each part of the restaurant, controlled by the staff without a manual, on a network that also carries the restaurant’s own operations.

What we designed

Zoned audio

The restaurant is divided into audio zones: the main dining floor, the bar and the private spaces, each with its own level and its own source. Sonance Professional Series pendant speakers hang over the dining areas so that the sound arrives from above the tables at a consistent level rather than from the walls, which in a tall room with a hard finish is the difference between atmosphere and noise. The pendants were chosen with the interior in mind and sit in the room as fittings rather than equipment.

Amplification and control

Powersoft amplifiers drive the zones, with multi-zone control so that each area can be adjusted independently. Control is centralised and simple: the staff set the level and source for each zone from one place, and the settings for lunch, dinner and a late Saturday are a matter of a few presses rather than a walk round the room.

Network

A wireless network covers the restaurant for its own systems and for guests, installed and configured by Lairds as part of the same job, so that the restaurant has one point of contact for everything that runs on it.

Calibration and training

Each zone was calibrated in the finished room, with the furniture in and the surfaces as they would be on opening night, and the management team were trained on the system before service started.

From shell to service

What went in

• Sonance Professional Series pendant speakers over the dining areas
• Powersoft amplifiers with multi-zone control
• Zoned audio: main dining floor, bar and private spaces
• Centralised AV control for staff
• Wireless network for the restaurant and its guests, installed and configured by Lairds
• Design, installation, calibration and staff training

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Opening a restaurant?

The sound in a restaurant is decided by the room, the finishes and the speaker positions, and all three are cheaper to get right before the ceiling closes. Bring us the drawings and we will tell you what the room needs.