The food internets are still buzzing over Washington Post food critic Tom Sietsema’s treatise on the noise level of restaurants “No Appetite for Noise” published last week. Sietsema, who now includes a sound measurement in his restaurant ratings (something the San Francisco Chronicle has been doing for years). The modern design inspired slick surfaces and cavernous spaces of new restaurants are turning them into echo chambers. I remember noticing this phenomenon for the first time while trying to eat at Arlington’s Clarendon Grille soon after it opened. Conversation was absolutely impossible thanks to the hellish din created by its concrete floors, metal tables, high ceilings. The diners screaming about the atmosphere didn’t help either.

Pity the restaurant workers who have to put up with with damaging assault on their hearing day in and day out:

Exposure to noise may be hardest on restaurant workers, who spend more time in a dining room than do the people they wait on. “Theoretically,” says Robert W. Sweetow, director of audiology and professor of otolaryngology at the University of California in San Francisco, “the sound levels over time are loud enough to get impaired hearing.” (Otolaryngology is the branch of medicine dealing with ear, nose and throat disorders.)

Noisy restaurants affect more than just the ears. Loud sounds can elevate blood pressure, increase breathing rates, intensify the effects of alcohol and make sleep difficult — even after the noise ceases. At certain elevated levels, some people can experience dizziness and even nausea.”

But working in a kitchen can’t be that much quieter than working on the floor (unless that kitchen belongs to Thomas Keller)? At 85 decibels, your average kitchen blender and garbage disposal noise can cause noise induced hearing loss, so imagine what the constant noise of a commercial kitchen could do? How do culinary schools address preventing noise in the workplace in their curricula? Do they address the prevention of noise-induced hearing loss with students? I imagine, if nothing else, all culinary programs and kitchens educate students, chefs, and aspiring chef interns about the OSHA guidelines which require a “hearing conversation program” when employees are exposed to 85 dB or more in an 8-hour day. Many restaurants operate at noise levels much higher than that as noted in Siestema’s article.