When the din distracts

Thank you for your fine, comprehensive article on noise in local restaurants [“The Art of Noise,” by Amy Scattergood, Feb. 27]. While restaurateurs are concentrating on creating “high-energy” environments, I suspect that most of us are looking for, and patronizing, restaurants that provide an escape from our already high-energy lives.

I encourage patrons to ask about the noise volume when making reservations, ask managers to lower the music volume when they arrive and comment on the appropriateness of the sound when they conclude dining.

Shirley Fredricks

Los Angeles

Iwould love a list of restaurants that offer quiet dining.

Mimi Fane

Tustin

Great piece. But you seemed to focus on high-end restaurants. Two of my favorite restaurants, the Griddle Cafe and Toi, both on Sunset Boulevard, are so unreasonably noisy that I’ve just stopped going there.

What bothered me most is that they arrogantly refused to lower the sound, saying it’s “part of the restaurant.” I don’t want to hear the owners’ playlist. And you can imagine how the older members of my family felt when I brought them there.

Spencer Martin

Studio City

Your article confirmed what I have been experiencing. When I find a restaurant where I can converse without becoming hoarse, it moves to the top of my list, and I definitely return.

Gerry Swider

Sherman Oaks

idea that, in decades past, diners ate “in respectful, if slightly bored, silence” is poppycock. My favorite dining experience of all time was when I was taken to Chasen’s. Chasen’s was an elegant, expensive, celebrity-driven restaurant. There was a lively buzz, pervasive, regardless of where you sat. Pervasive, but not intrusive. You could carry on a conversation without effort, and there was plenty of energy and warmth in the room.

Marsha Berman

Santa Monica

It may be that at almost 59, with too much loud music in college in the ‘60s, my hearing is going. But part of the problem is that the restaurants don’t want people to linger in conversation; they want to “turn the table.” They think they will attract a younger, hip crowd, but it’s folks like me who can afford $120 to $140 for dinner for two.

I had dinner recently at the Grill in Beverly Hills and that was noisy too [despite the fact that] at my advanced age I was among the younger folks there. I had to shout to our dinner companions to make myself heard.

Daniel Fink

Los Angeles