Vinyl Bar Da Nang: Inside Gụ Wine Bistro's Sound System
Updated: 6 days ago
When we opened Gụ in late February, just after Tết, the plan was to have DJs on the weekends. A couple of nights of records alongside the wine and Alessio's food, and the rest of the week would be a fairly normal bistro. That plan lasted about a month, which we'll come back to.
If you found this page by searching for a vinyl bar in Da Nang, you're not completely in the wrong place. We still think of Gụ as a wine bistro first, and we're a bit careful about calling it a listening bar, because the really serious listening bars around the world are almost ceremonial and that's not what we do here. But the music is a big part of why the place feels the way it does, so we wanted to write down how it came together.
The records are Axel's
Most of what you see on the shelves belongs to Axel. He's been collecting for eight, maybe ten years, and he still buys new records every month, so what's at the restaurant is only part of it. None of it was bought to make the room look good. These are records he bought because he wanted to listen to them, and they get played.
Axel has also worked in wine in Vietnam for more than ten years, and for him the two things have always felt close. You pick a bottle, you look at the label, there's a producer and a year and a place behind it, and you open it and let it change in the glass over an evening. With a record you go through the crates, pull one out, put it on and lower the needle, and there's an artist and a label and a moment in time behind that too. In both cases somebody chose that particular thing for that particular night, and that part matters a lot to us.
Building the sound into an old house
The building was an old house that had been more or less abandoned. We didn't want to wipe it clean, so we opened it up instead: the ceiling, big windows for light, a veranda. Alessio had most of the vision for the interior, and he was very particular about the lighting, because we always wanted the room to change as the night goes on.
The speakers are a pair of Klipsch Forte IIIs. Underneath them we built storage for the records, so the sound system and the collection ended up as part of the furniture.
One subwoofer you'll probably never notice. While we were still building, we cut an opening under the bar just for it. There's a second one for the lower floor. We spread the sound around the building rather than pushing a few speakers really loud, and we spent quite a bit on acoustic treatment and soundproofing. The whole point was that you can always hear the person across the table, even on a full night.
Why the DJ stay at the bar
We didn't want the DJ tucked into a corner, up on a stage, or shut away in a booth. At Gụ they sit right at the central bar, a little raised, so you can see them from almost anywhere in the room, even from downstairs.
People at the bar end up very close. They watch someone dig through records, recognise a song, ask what's playing, start chatting. A few of the DJs have told us that playing here feels like playing records for friends in their own living room, and that's probably the nicest way anyone has described what we were going for.
We don't ask anyone to make people dance
There's no dancefloor, and we don't judge a DJ on how quickly they can turn dinner into a party. What we ask is that they go along with the evening and show us a bit of who they are through what they play.
A lot of DJs have records they love and hardly ever get to play in clubs, because they're too slow, or too long, or too jazzy, or just a bit strange. Here that's completely fine. Someone might go from jazz to soul to disco to house, or play something that doesn't really fit any genre. The good ones understand the job is to read the room. Sometimes the music should almost disappear behind the conversation, and sometimes, when every table is full, one record lands and the whole room seems to feel it at once without anybody getting up.
Every night, not just weekends
We didn't plan on having a DJ every single night. For our first month it was weekends only, but the response from guests, and honestly from the DJs themselves, made the answer obvious. Now someone's behind the decks every evening, usually for three to five hours, between our resident DJs and a rotating cast of guests who bring their own crates and their own taste.
We invite dinner for our DJs when they come in, we respect the time and records they bring, and we pay them properly. They're not background decoration, they're part of making the night.
Come by for a glass
You don't need to know the producer, the grape, or the record that's playing to have a good night here. Honestly, not knowing is part of the fun. Come for dinner, stay for another glass, and ask whoever's at the bar what they just put on.
Macy Nguyen
Curious cork popper!
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