Din-Din Din

America is becoming a nation of noisy eaters

PEOPLE want to be part of something larger than themselves," observes Ernie Bogen, restaurateur. He isn't talking about the Junior League or saving whales, but about the furious din at Ernie's, his amphitheatric restaurant on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

The cacophony produced there is indicative of a curious development in design. "Noise creates energy! It is theater!" trills designer Sam Lopata, creator of Manhattan's Cafe Seiyoken, a steely black restaurant so noisy that one barely notices the food. At the Hard Rock Cafe, where lacquered rock stars' guitars hang from the walls, loudspeaker messages for Dotty the waitress are barely audible over taped background music. Burgers and fries aren't the primary items of consumption—"the most important ingredient," says general manager Eric Crisman, is the background tape. It ' 'creates a clublike ambience. " It ' 'evokes a mood. " To make more room for the pressing crowds at the door, its decibel level can be raised to oust diners who linger.

Piped-in noise is already used to calm us in analysts' waiting rooms, to stimulate sales in shopping malls. And "the world is getting noisier," confirms acoustics engineer Lewis Goodfriend, citing amplifiers, blenders, kitchen fans, television sets, weapon fire, lawn mowers, security alarms, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. "Restaurants respond to the culture. To be quiet is against the mores of the present generation. ' '

Traditionally, restaurants have transformed eating, a basic animal need, into a civilized activity. Commotion may be a natural part of Munich beer halls and South Philadelphia diners, but what the new see-and-be-seen restaurants offer is designer noise. The restaurateurs relate to noise like frat brothers in a food fight, zinging it across white marble floors, swinging it across brass balconies, and flinging it across polished tabletops. Those old softy sound absorbers—thick carpeting, luxuriant draperies, linen tablecloths—are passe.

If restaurant designers are turning into glorified sound D.J. 's, restaurants are being designed as theaters-in-the-round, so much so that one half-expects Sammy Davis, Jr., to emerge singing "The Candy Man." Though, of course, the stars of the cabaret are actually the diners.

Restaurants used to be somewhere to have an intimate conversation. But perhaps that's no longer the thing. As one Beverly Hills resident notes, the new cafes are perfect places to take people you don't like. "You can see and hear everyone here," she says. "Except the person you're with."

Patricia Leigh Brown