Our Dietary Requirement: Quiet

      Before going out, we used to just check out the menu. Did the restaurant have things we could eat, stuff we liked, dishes that sounded interesting?

      And maybe, then, we’d take a look at the prices—were the prices reasonable or did the salmon entrees begin at 40 bucks?

      Now, even before checking out the menu, before glancing at the prices, we ask: how noisy is the restaurant?

      Is it a place where we can actually have a conversation? Where we can talk to friends or each other—and really hear what anyone is saying?

      Forget the salmon, forget the nice wine list and the abundant parking nearby: is it a place where we don’t have to shout or have to regularly ask the person on the other side of the table to please, say that again? Can you repeat that? I’m sorry, what did you say?

      OK, I know part of it is us. That we all don’t hear as well as we used to. Many of us, in fact, have hearing aids to attest to that. Many of us probably should have them.

      But still: even if we heard better, even if we spoke more loudly, it’s almost impossible to hear clearly now in so many restaurants.

      What I mean is, it’s not just us.

      Surveys in both Zagat’s restaurant guide and in Consumer Reports have found that excessive noise is the number 1 complaint diners have. They say it’s more of a problem than the quality of the food or the efficiency of the service.

      Restaurant critics have traced the issue back to the ‘90s, just when many of us were experiencing the beginning of declines in our hearing. The “Great Noise Boom,” they say, started when star chef Mario Batali began pumping the loud music his kitchen staff enjoyed while working right into the dining room of the chic New York restaurant Babbo. Other star chefs followed.

      Meanwhile, styles of décor have been changing, with no more sound-muffling carpets and the removal of tablecloths and, instead, more hard floors, high ceilings and exposed wood tables. Then, too, there’s the recent trend to open kitchens, where the clanging and banging of pots and pans is part of the experience and part of the background noise as well.

      Many restaurants seem to have joined the movement, figuring, I guess, that a constant sound track of raucous music and ambient noise conveyed a sense of vibrancy, energy and popularity. A welcoming vibe. Or maybe they just wanted diners to simply not overstay their welcome, so they could rotate new customers in and increase turnover.  

      In places like New York, there has started to be, maybe, the beginnings of a backlash against all the noise, but most of the rest of the country has picked up the baton and pumped up the music.

      When friends from out of town visited us in our university town a few weeks back, they wanted to take us out to dinner. Any kind of food was ok, they said, any style, any price level. Only one thing, they said, but it was the most important thing: it had to be a place where they could hear. It had to be a place where we could have a conversation.

      We had to eliminated half a dozen places. When we got to the restaurant we had finally chosen—no amplified music, tables wonderfully spaced widely apart—my wife took out her phone and clicked on a new app. It’s called SoundPrint and it measures restaurants’ sound level. You can find out if the noise level is considered quiet, moderate, loud or very loud.

      The app can measure, but of course, it doesn’t, unfortunately, prevent.