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Profile

Nectar is a Philadelphia culinary experience that brings together the talent and experience of three exceptional chefs: Chef Patrick Feury (from Suilan at the Borgata, Susanna Foo and Le Cirque), Chinese chef Wo Quin Huang (from Yangming) and sushi chef Sano Sherpa.  

Nectar's architectural platform is a combination of artistry and urban beauty. Designed by the New York-based David Rockwell Group, Nectar showcases a bi-level, stone structure with vaulted ceilings that give room to a towering 18-foot silk-screen Buddha. Resplendent in His robed repose, the Buddha's radiance is reflected in Nectar's impressive interior. The dining room's inviting ambience of fiery orange glows and warm, lemon yellow and chocolate brown banquettes delivers a kindred spirit to Nectar's distinctive menu.

Objective

The owners and designers of Nectar knew that great food alone does not always make for a successful restaurant.  To complement a skillfully created and executed menu, Nectar wanted to create an ambiance for the restaurant that would put its patrons in an exceptional mood and make dining and drinking at Nectar a memorable experience.   

Restaurant owners Michael Wei and Scott Morrison wanted to use music to create and enhance different moods within the restaurant. The bar area was to be a loud and trendy hot spot, while the dining areas were to have a more quiet, intimate atmosphere.  Even at different times of the night, each area might have a different feeling created by the type and volume of the music played.   On a weekend, the music might be louder throughout the entire restaurant or quieted down to accommodate a special event.

Nectar came to ECI because of its sophisticated design ability and national reputation for professionalism and excellence.  The owners were spending a considerable amount of money to build this new restaurant and they wanted the sound system to be the best club-level audio system available.  Nothing short of this was needed to bring the overall customer experience in line with the exceptional quality of the food they would be serving.

Challenge

ECI was dealing with large open spaces at Nectar that included different sized rooms (the bar, various dining areas and a mezzanine) each with different ceiling heights and dimensions.   ECI needed to select the right components for each area so that music could be directed and confined to a specific area and not interfere with that of another.  It’s not enough to just position speakers randomly throughout a room, no matter how high the quality or price of the speaker.  ECI needed to strategically place speakers throughout the restaurant resulting in no “hot spots” where music was pounding loudly in one area, but drowned out in another.  The design challenge was to provide consistency of clear, beautiful sound throughout Nectar’s spaces to enhance the overall customer experience.

Solution

ECI worked with the owners, architects and designers of Nectar to design and install a state-of-the-art club-level sound system that could easily be controlled to create and manage the atmosphere and ambiance that Nectar wanted.  ECI installed a multi-zoned audio system that allowed distinct music volume for the main dining floor, booths and bar area as the mood at the restaurant evolved through the night.  This satisfied the need to be able to move beyond just background music.  It enabled the entire restaurant to take on multiple atmospheres.  Different speakers were skillfully selected for specific purposes and positioning.  Hi directivity EV “In-Ceiling” speakers were installed in the main areas and hi directivity Bose Cubes and Sun Woofers were used in the main bar area. A customized and updatable playlist for each zone was developed by Music Works to deliver the perfect selection of tunes.

Results

With the help of ECI, Nectar was able to open on time and has since become one of the hottest spots in the Philadelphia area for dining and night life. Whether it’s an intimate dinner or cocktails with colleagues, ECI played an important role in creating the sounds that make the mood at Nectar restaurant one of its many delicacies.