Are Hifi Bars the New Tapas Bar?

*Disclaimer (or perhaps confession…[or even qualification]): I was a resident DJ at London’s high-end hifi bar Spiritland from 2018-19, so there is a level of hypocrisy or irony that I’m more than aware of by writing this month’s newsletter. JUST SAYIN.

Ok, serious writing starts now.

Over the last decade, the presence of hifi bars, or “listening bars” has grown exponentially in major cities around the world. What they are, are (often not always) loungy restaurants/bars that centre around the concept of having a high-end sound-system as the main attraction, the point of differentiation and the central feature in the space. Flanked by large speakers, vinyl DJs spin tasteful records to post-work diners and music enthusiasts on any given Wednesday. 

In theory, as a fan of “quiet music” or “slow music” myself (i.e. I’m by no means a late night club dweller…as I’m sure you can tell), this is a welcome addition to the hospitality industry - a way for music fans to appreciate music in a calm setting, delivered with a discerning level of audio quality.

But, by nature of being a music “content creator” who also enjoys talking about music and hifi, I am often DMed, tagged, mentioned and emailed about “yet another” hifi bar opening in another district, and I’ve started to pick up certain themes - in the press release, in the bar design and in the menu that has me wondering - is this the proprietor’s quest to evolve the idea of “listening” beyond the club, or is this…just another tapas bar?

Artichoked

For those who don’t recall, in the mid 2000’s, Spanish Tapas bars were everywhere.

“Share plates are in! A la carte is dead!”

“Communal dining, what a concept! ”

“Chorizo! It’s more than just another sausage!”

(I made all these quotes up btw)

All of a sudden, the tablecloth was pulled from under the 90’s antipasto plate, and was replaced by one hundred unevenly sized terracotta dishes, each filled with a different artichoke, olive or tapenade for you to “experience the deliciously chaotic and beautiful tapas trend taking the world by storm” (my last fabricated quote promise).

I definitely had my fair share of tapas corporate lunches - where the hard green olives were passed around for the 11th time with the head of sales singing “are we sure no one wants to eat these? It’d be a shame for them to go to waste”.

Just like farm to table, green smoothies or cronuts, tapas bars popped up in every airport departure lounge the world over. Why? Because, as much as we all love a burger or a slice of pizza, we, as the social dining generation, are always looking for “that new way to eat” and will impress our friends. And for a time, tapas bars were that. 

But just as the terracotta ramekins were being crushed down and repurposed for flower pots, and our taste for chorizo hardened like the fat that gathered around the bottom of the dish, the hifi bar’s volume was just getting turned up.

Bigger in Japan

My tapas bar thesis is born out of the fact that these aforementioned press releases/Instagram posts/blog articles I was being sent all had a few central “themes” in common:

• “World class” hifi system

• Vinyl only DJs

• Japanese izakaya and premium saké to match

If you have a moment, you should all check out Sasha Frere-Jones’ brilliant Corner Club Cathedral Cocoon article for Harper’s Magazine. In it, Frere-Jones explores the different ways we experience music listening, one being the ‘cathedral’ as he calls it.

The cathedrals he speaks on are defined by dwellings, home or otherwise, that are dedicated to seeking excellence in sound. And no better example of this can be found than, of course, in Japan. There, they call them “jazz kissas” (jazz cafes) - tiny bars dotted around Japan, a shrine dedicated to the owner’s jazz record collection and their meticulously constructed sound system. Jazz kissas aren’t meant for everybody - in fact, they’re mostly meant for the owner themselves - think of it as a commercial way to justify their jazz obsession. 

Naturally, word eventually got out about these establishments, and like many Japanese habits, much like matcha tea and anime, the listening bar/jazz kissa concept started to make its way out of the hidden dens of Tokyo, and into, say, Dalston, London.

“Derrick you should start a hifi bar and serve Japanese whiskey” has been mentioned to me multiple times over the last year. To me, the mention of Japanese whiskey always felt quite strange to me. As a music listener and fan, if I was to open a bar, why should Japanese be attached to it? That question swirled around in my head - not because I’m starting a hifi bar, but because I thought speakers were universal - but intentional listening…was Japanese?

In short…kind of?

Derrick’s Ill Defined Listen Bar Ethos

At this point, it makes sense that I do my best to define what a jazz kissa strives for, to better understand their roots. From my “arms length” viewpoint - here is my understanding of what jazz kissas are about:

• The meticulous reproduction of recorded jazz, through an obsession with and acquisition of vintage hifi - often vintage American systems (such as Western Electric, Altec, JBL, Klipsch)

• An appreciation from its clientele - the customer respects the owner’s presentation of their collection and hifi system, and will listen attentively to it

• An opportunity for the owner to play their beloved records for a captive audience

• An intimacy (in size and approach) that allows the music to be the main attraction

The Case for Listening Bars

In theory, I am really down for what the listening bar stands for - which is, appreciation without total inebriation. Key word: total. Inebriation is fun, but perhaps without the k-hole.

I’ve often spoken to many people in the past about the lack of places where a person can enjoy and appreciate the silky coos of Smokey Robinson, rather than the techno doofs of Sven Väth. If we can enjoy “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” from the comfort of our own homes, or wireless earbuds, why can’t we out in the open, at say, 3:22pm? 

This is a much more desirable alternative to other solutions that have come before. There’s one in particular that I recall when I lived in London, where the organiser promoted an event where you listen to an album in complete darkness, which…is a bit unsettling among a room of strangers, although earnest in intent.

In theory, hifi bars are a beautiful notion. It’s a place for the introvert, the day time music fan, for those who enjoy things below 100bpm. Me.

Culture and Intentional Listening

With the cultural practice of “intentional hifi listening” established in Japan, the question for me is - can the listening bar be successfully transported abroad?

You see, Japanese culture in particular is one where the house rules are most important. If you are there to listen, you better not be there to gossip about your boss and bicker about not getting a raise. This is a place to experience and appreciate. Comparatively, our western sensibilities are more attuned to - the customer is always right - and if the boss’ salary slacking is the topic of the day, I’m sorry, Smokey can smoke on another day.

To make the case against hifi bars, much of my position is formed around commercial viability, and customer appetite.

• Most western hifi bars are quite large in size, more of a medium to large restaurant than dingy bar

• Many are fitted out with the finest tableware, designer furniture, branding and room treatment (soundproofing, dampening etc)

• The sound system isn’t the owner’s meticulously acquired vintage collection, but is bought in - often consulted by the city’s best and most well known audiophile establishment

• There is an expectation that the food must equal the quality of the decor and sound, so the kitchen staff are normally experienced chefs, rather than say, the owner’s spouse serving up potato salad with an ice cream scooper. The press release often touts a well known head chef of notable pedigree 

• Lastly, the liquor can’t be any old Hendricks. How dare! It has to be the most discerning saké and Japanese whiskey…but of course

To have such demanding criteria means that western bars are often underwritten by restaurant chains, developers or investors, where margins are made through a fast turning crowd of keen drinkers and diners alike, with the ambition to turn the tables faster than you can turn the record to side B. The rooms are 50-200 capacity and bustling, open from 12pm to 2am. There is a business plan in place to recoup the heavy investment in sound and lighting. It’s an operation. It’s a real bonafide business…shock…horror!

Spirit, Land

I think it’s good to pause here to share my personal experience of being a resident DJ at a hifi bar. Spiritland, situated in the newly ordained corporate hub, Kings Cross in London, has an almighty sound system that would have cost them a whole lot of bread. The branding was done by probably the most highly regarded design studio on the planet, Pentagram. The outfitting of the establishment is incredible. The room treatment looks like fine mid-century panelling. The toilet cubicles have nice speakers. I repeat, EVEN THE TOILET CUBICLES HAVE NICE SPEAKERS. A lil swerve for them though, is that they didn’t serve Japanese food. Gasp! Their roast potatoes…ugh, I DJed for those alone. I would say the max capacity there was fifty people seated, eighty standing. It always astounded me as to how they expected to make their money back on such a heavy investment. Normal restaurants don’t have a honking speaker horn in your face, or a custom brass DJ mixer showing its patina as it ages.

On a good day, when it was moderately busy but not heaving, it was a joy to play there. When there was a mild buzz, everyone could really enjoy the music - it was loud enough for people to appreciate, but it wasn’t overwhelming, allowing the tourists from Luxembourg to feed their kids on their way to Kings Cross St. Pancras station. One of my fondest memories I had as a DJ there was of a mother, who moved her chair into the middle of the room as her kids noshed on some potatoes, and closed her eyes as I played Etta James. That was a special moment that I’ll never forget.

On a bad day, here are my most vivid memories:

• I had just finished my set and the next DJ had put on his first track. In order to enjoy his food allowance given to him by the venue with his wife, he put on a twenty minute jazz record, walked away from the turntable, sat down and ate. To witness it was a surreal moment of…was he a DJ at this moment? Or did he just put on the soundtrack to his honey wings?

• On another occasion, the venue was so full that I could barely hear the music. The place was buzzing, which is what you want I guess, but also, I wasn’t really sure if people were there for the vibe, the food, and for the music to reflect the electric mood or to reflect the “hifi bar” aesthetic. There wasn’t any place to dance, but I felt the urge to play more danceable music as people started to get jolly. All while struggling to hear the music. It made me wonder, when you have speakers as large as Spiritland did, when does a hifi bar become a club? Or is that against the rules?

The State of Play/Pause

The argument that I am crudely building is this: at best, my most memorable tapas bar experiences introduced me to flavours and social interactions not shared in more traditional three course establishments. The aroma, the clinks of the plates, the arms reaching over to try a bit of this with a bit of that, was fun…and different. At worst, bad food congealed in small dishes, and each dish tasted EXACTLY same. The flamenco music and sangria on tap became a recipe for a bad dream and a funny tummy.

Is this the potential fate for hifi bars? I think we’re a good five years away from knowing. 

What worries me is that from what I’m observing, the “culture” that the practice originated from is largely ornamental, or decorative in the western counterparts. From the obligatory Japanese menu, to the shiny new sound system, to the financial district location and the “vinyl DJs with vinyl shelves behind the bar” design (where did all these records come from? Or are they mostly thrift shop Engelbert Humperdinck sleeves turned the opposite way?) - the decade-long rise of these bars has become surprisingly formulaic. 

Is it a fad? I think the hospitality industry is pretty good at stress testing fads with impressive speed. If you’re early to a new food/restaurant concept fad, whether it’s deep fried pastry, foamed seafood or high hydration sourdough - and you’re ahead of the curve by a good year or two, it’s probably comparable to “trying to go viral online”. You have a good chance that you’ll catch a couple years of buzz, courtesy of the trickle down word of mouth: “oh we should go to that new vinyl bar, it sounds fun”.

That is not to say that there aren’t attempts to stray from the mean. Rhythm Section label founder and DJ Bradley Zero opened a more intimate listening bar in South London that features one record player - to emphasise the “long play” listening experience, rather than a bar/club hybrid of his counterparts over the river. South Korea also has some very well established listening rooms that feature the same obsessive Japanese acquisition of sound systems. Last year when I visited Seoul, I was surprised by how many venues, from streetwear stores to cafes displayed a deep respect and familiarity with the hifi-world. One streetwear store in particular sold boonie hats, Nalgenes and McIntosh Amps…for the intrepid…hifi enthusiast?

Brooklyn’s Public Records has two spaces - a vegan restaurant/bar with a vinyl DJ and modest sound system. Then next door, they have a thumping club with a banging Ojas sound system - a solution that I feel is smart when juggling cultures and…dancers.

Lastly, and possibly my favourite is London’s Brilliant Corners - which sure, makes Japanese food and is vinyl only. But is intimately sized, plays music on four beautiful Klipschorns and once dinner service is done, the tables are pushed aside so revellers can indulge in a little dance.

Will the Needle Drop?

So where do I think this trend will net out in the next five years? Well firstly, I think it will be boom time for the vinyl DJs of the world, because I don’t see the trend slowing down. So if you have a twenty minute jazz tune and a place to sit, you’ll be a happy wing eater. Here are the scenarios I see, using tapas as the control.

The worst case is that it suffers the fate of the tapas bar, where you could get a tepid chorizo in a little orange dish next to a tea light as easily as you could get a packet of cigarettes from your corner store. Comparing this to the hifi-bar trend, the ubiquitous oil-covered Sonos hung from the ceiling corner might make way for strategically placed speakers and a turntable with a record spinning - to give the establishment a visual allusion of “taste”. But over time, said turntable will lie oily and dormant, as the proprietors realise that hearing A Seat at the Table side A three times a day isn’t what feeling hip should feel like. The tepid-chorizo-but-hifi comparison would be a stack of moderately curated records that aren’t enough to fill a night, but is enough to make people feel like the place has a “retro” vibe. Or worse still, the while the tapas bar owes their bank for overpaying for Spanish tea-light holders, the hifi bar owner might have to hock off their $100k sound system to pay for their overdue saké bills.

At best - hifi bars of the future thrive and a new culture of slow music enjoyment is born. A Derrick Gee paradise of slow music and quiet corners! And as the culture develops, there could be a world where the small to medium sized bars get quirkier and quirkier in sound and decor, and stray far from saké and Sonny Rollins and exploring things like…ice cream and Ice Spice perhaps.

A Passive/Active End

Ultimately, this is more of a fun thought exercise for me to explore and you to enjoy reading. But I’ll leave you with one important aspect that I think is the hardest thing to overcome for these establishments: active vs passive listening.

There are very few cases where listening to music is the attraction. Concerts are the most singular. Raves are a combination of social, auditory and bodily. In western culture, this is pretty much as dedicated as we get when it comes to active listening, while still being a human being in the real world (unless you choose to sit in the dark with strangers). Comparatively, passive listening is everywhere else. Listening to music while we work, commute, shop, dine, clean, iron, cook.

The real question is this - is it even commercially viable to have a listening bar that can sustain itself, if not run by a husband and wife in the alleyways of Omotesandō with their own personal sound system and record collection? If the clientele mostly sit in chairs facing speakers in a chin-stroking-almost-vegetative-state while they “actively listen”, does that kind of experience elucidate “a good time” that also earns you more than half a whiskey per hour? Or are clubs and home listening environments the tried and tested solution to recorded music appreciation? Is quiet music just for the individual to savour in the privacy of their own home?

Dear reader, after exploring these avenues with you today, I think my conclusion is this: 

Maybe tapas was a global fad, but is now a universally understood dining practice and cuisine that made corporate lunches a little less beer-battered.

Maybe the Japanese indeed created something magical, but that magic is meant for ten people to enjoy with their scoop of potato salad and a cold beer. And maybe it can exist with earnest purity as the city’s population is the size of Zimbabwe.

Maybe, music finds its place however loudly or quietly it is played. It can envelop a mum experiencing a transcendental Etta James moment, or it can unobtrusively fill the corners of a room to compliment the hum of a bachelorette party. And maybe that’s ok.

Maybe, much like cockroaches in an apocalypse, or overly oiled chorizo in a suburban cafe, music finds a way to survive, however the presentation. 

Or maybe, I can find a cheap McIntosh amp at a fire sale when all the fuss dies down. 

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