The brainchild of Will Ricker (who heads up Ricker Restaurants), top New York nightlife designer, impresario and 'cultural engineer' Serge Becker was brought in to create the interior of this two-in-one operation. With a fully featured DJ booth set downstairs in the 95-cover basement restaurant lounge, the designer, also responsible for such places as the similarly conceived La Esquina as well as Joe's Pub and The Mercer Hotel - specified RCF sound reinforcement throughout, based on his positive experiences with the brand in the Big Apple.
Designing the sound for the hacienda style basement into five zones, Colin Pattenden of CP Sound has wall-mounted four C3110 full range, compact 10" + 1.5" horn, wide-dispersion, low profile loudspeakers, one in each corner of the main Piano Room. Providing low frequency extension are a pair of concealed Acustica S8015 low-profile Band-pass 15in subwoofers.
In the basement's secondary dining area, which forms its own independent zone, are a further pair of RCF C3110's and an S8015 sub, with three further C3110's and a low profile sub distributing sound around the Basement Bar.
Stated Colin Pattenden, "Serge Becker requested that we used RCF and we were happy to do so as these are extremely powerful speakers. The system has been carefully processed, and although La Bodega Negra is situated under the Z Hotel, there is massive concrete isolation which enables the system to be pushed up to around 115dB if necessary. The S8015's were fantastic for installing because they fitted snuggly underneath all the seating."
Feeds into the system vary, from CD playback from Pioneer CDJ-900's - with a DJ operating Tuesday through Saturday - to computer music files, which provide general background music. The sound has been carefully processed to optimise the coverage, and is distributed through a series of zoners to the ten different areas of the restaurant.
With a lively café and taqueria on the ground floor complementing the downstairs restaurant (each served by separate entrances), La Bodega Negra is the latest addition to Ricker Restaurants' portfolio, their other units including such well-known haunts as The Great Eastern Dining Room, Eight Over Eight and E&O. Due to the locality of the venue homage is also paid to the history of the area - with a faux frontage designed to simulate a sex shop, with red neon lights.
Stated general manager, Richard Seldon, "These speakers produce a clean, well-balanced sound, with good bottom end. Downstairs we need music that's loud, but at the same time doesn't interfere with the dining. The RCF system delivers that."
(Jim Evans)
