The Client

Voted in the Times Top 100 UK restaurants in 2018, RedFarm, located at Russell Street, just off the Piazza in Covent Garden, London, delivers super-charged dim sum from Chinese food expert Ed Schoenfeld and dim sum master chef Joe Ng. It promises a modern twist on a traditional Chinese menu – adapted for the Western palate.

The menu includes signature items such as clever dim sum creations and small plates: Pac Man dumplings; Shrimp-stuffed Crispy Chicken; mushroom spring rolls and BBQ’d Pork Belly Sliders to die for.

Like its menu, the restaurant interior reflects a fresh approach to Chinese cuisine. It is both modern and rustic, like its US counterpart. Spread across three floors, the ninety-six-seat restaurant embodies a casual and cool dining experience with exposed white brick walls and light wooden floors throughout. Long communal tables sit across each floor, supported by more intimate booths and seating at the bar.

Project Brief

The client requested a high quality, zonal background music system with accurate sound reproduction across the three floors of the restaurant. It also had to provide foreground music levels with higher SPL when required.

The system had to be flexible, allowing for optional music player plug-in points for private dining guests and visiting entertainment.

System Solution

The audio solution consisted of a mix of Martin Audio loudspeakers, distributed over three floors. We selected the CCD5 loudspeaker due to its compact size, elegant design and superior sound quality at a competitive price point whilst also being capable of slightly higher SPLs when turned up on busy evenings requiring more atmosphere. Six speakers cover the ground floor restaurant, four in the first-floor private dining room whilst two flush-mounted C4.8T ceiling speakers extend the music experience into the washrooms. A final pair of CCD5s grace the cosy private bar on the second floor.

Audio is routed via a Cloud Z8 MK4 zone mixer with eight channels of power provided by Yamaha PX3 and PX5 power amplifiers.

Remote music player plug-in points allow portable music players or DJs to plug in to the system on each floor and play out either just to that floor or to the entire system across all three floors.

End game

“RedFarm was an exciting project where we were able to showcase our expertise, implementing a full audio installation across the three floors. Both Ed and Joe were awesome to work with and the vision for the restaurant was inspiring. It was a real pleasure to add value to such a prestigious, avant-garde establishment, leaving the Sound Division stamp on Covent Garden along with several others in the same area,” comments David Graham, Director of Sound Division.