Sound Division turns up the burner at Hoxton Grille
The Hoxton Grille, located within the trendy new-build Hoxton Hotel in London’s Shoreditch, has all the natural ambience of an all-day brasserie/bistro surrounding an open terrace.
Operating independently from Sinclair Beecham's 205-bedroom four star hotel, Hoxton Grille owners Simon Wright and John Pallagi have created a perfect restaurant and bar combination… which follows on naturally from their acclaimed portfolio of contemporary chic Room Restaurants, which was founded in 2000.
Adding to the ambience throughout the large open-plan ground floor is guitar and film soundtrack-inspired music, sensitively programmed and delivered by iPod and Denon 6-disc multi CD player.
Based nearby, audio system designers and installers, Sound Division Group, have a long association with Simon Wright’s ventures. Here they were again called on to enhance the existing background system — fitted when the hotel was erected on the site of the former car park.
Said Sound Division Group managing director, "The challenge here was to interface with a perfectly acceptable background system but augment the feature areas at the bar and front lounge, where the DJ booth is set up. At the same time we provided system equalisation and protection via a dbx 2031 31-band graphic EQ/limiter and used a Cloud Z8 zoner to route the signal source."
In the front lounge JBL Control 29's face out onto Great Eastern Street like sentries, complementing the Penton 100v line speakers providing the background sound in the 100-cover restaurant, which offers a blend of American steak and Parisian bistro classics. Out in the 40-seat terrace Sound Division Group have specified four of Work's cost-effective weatherproof Studio 30's, one in each corner.
Restaurant manager Richard Moore, formerly at nearby Shish, says that the Hoxton Grille will not only service hotel guests but provide a much needed facility for the thriving local community from 7am. This includes live DJ sessions on Friday, Saturday and Sunday afternoons, operating alongside a daily-rotating playlist. To faciliate this Sound Division have provided a plug-in point and highly-specified DJ console, complete with portable flight case. The equipment includes industry-standard Technics SL1210 turntables and Denon DN-D4500 twin CD players, Allen & Heath XONE:62 mixer and Alesis powered DJ monitor.
Sound Division project manager Elliot Patterson sectioned the big open space, designed by Gabriel Murray, into three separate sound zones to maximise coverage.
As for Murray’s funky décor, this epitomises contemporary cool, with clean lines, exposed brick and wood tones complemented by vibrant modern art wall hangings by local artists.
David Graham concluded, "It's great to be working again with Simon Wright, with whom we have had a relationship stretching back to his days as F&B manager at the Sanderson Hotel." Since then the entrepreneur has used SDG as his preferred audio visual supplier on virtually all his projects including the recent Room restaurant at the Trials Hotel in Liverpool.
September 2006