‘It’s atmosphere’: is noise of London’s restaurants just part of the charm?

theguardian.com:

Cutlery clanging on plates, chairs scraping across a hardwood floor, the boisterous anecdote of a half-cut raconteur: when it comes to restaurants, one person’s idea of a “good atmosphere” has another reaching for their earplugs.

But for those who like their food served up along with the decibel levels of a motorbike or lawnmower, London is the place to be.

New data this week revealed the capital’s restaurants are the loudest in Europe, and second only to San Francisco worldwide. A random survey by SoundPrint, a global app measuring noise levels, found 80% of 1,350 London restaurants were too loud for conversation.

And half of those measured exceeded 80 decibels (dBA) during peak times, louder than a vacuum cleaner and past the threshold for potentially endangering hearing. The restaurant at the top of the table, according the data provided by app users, was the Japanese restaurant Shack Fuyu in Soho, which registered 94 dBA according to one reading submitted.

According to hearing loss charity RNID, volumes of more than 90 decibels are equivalent to sitting next to a motorbike or lawnmower, and continued exposure to noise at, or above, 80-85dBA can cause hearing loss.

As diners emerged on to bustling Old Compton Street on Thursday night, they expressed surprise at Shack Fuyu’s newfound title.

Unsurprisingly, younger diners were less fussed. Sisters Cara and Alix Bell were among them, who had dined with their mother and the former’s boyfriend. “It was probably us making the noise, I’ll have to get my own decibel meter out,” joked Cara. “We’ve been in before and it can be loud, but it depends what the other tables are like. If you have someone loud next to you, then of course it will be, but I don’t remember it being