The fast growing Sweet Potato Restaurant & Leisure Ventures Group has extended its latest restaurant concept — Kitchen Italia — by opening a second site close to Covent Garden’s trendy Seven Dials restaurant.

Kitchen Italia features large sharing wooden benches and a lively fast-service basement atmosphere brought to life by a background music system by the Sound Division Group featuring white Martin Audio architectural AQ loudspeakers alternating along the vaulted ceiling down the length of the room.

With its prime location next to the Donmar Theatre, and well known in its former incarnation as the Bunker Bar, Kitchen Italia specializes in fresh, homemade pastas and char grill pizzas.

“Kitchen Italia needed a good quality background music system and we were pleased to recommend the AQ series after testing them at Villandry in Bicester,� said SDG’s David Graham. “The client was hugely impressed by the sound quality.�

Trading seven days a week, from 11am until late, the new Earlham Street operation needed durability as well as high performance. Sound Division Group installed a total of seven Martin Audio two-way AQ6 loudspeakers in their linear configuration, divided between the front restaurant, bar and the lobby at street level.

The music is programmed and fed by an 8Track Music Solutions server, powered by Crown XLS amplifiers and routed to its various destinations from a Cloud CX 263 three-way zoner.

“We are delighted to be on board with such an exciting brand roll-out as Kitchen Italia,� summarized Graham. “It was an advantage to have worked closely with Hendry Electrical Contractors and shop fitters, Teknika, on the Westfield site, and the same team ensured that the installation ran on schedule without a hitch.�

Replied Kitchen Italia operators director, Alain Decesse, “The quality of the sound is perfectly suited to this environment — enhancing the mood of the restaurant subliminally and transparently. It is precisely what we asked for.�

For more about Martin Audio, please click to www.martin-audio.com.