Some of the top restaurants in the US are serving only tap water, and banning the bottles. Could this trend take off here, asks Rosita Boland
It's the first question you are asked when you sit down in a restaurant: "Still or sparkling water?" Water straight from the tap is rarely mentioned. In some of the snootier establishments, requests for a jug of tap water are received with bemused disdain, as if you'd ordered something illicit off-menu, such as roast swan, or lark's heart, instead of honest-to-God free water.
This spring, Chez Panisse, an internationally famous restaurant in Berkeley, California, made headlines all over the US when it announced that it was now going to offer only filtered tap water to customers. Last summer, it took bottled still water off its menu. Now all bottled water has been banned, and the restaurant carbonates its own filtered tap water on the premises.
"Our whole goal of sustainability means using as little energy as we have to," explained Mike Kossa-Rienzi, general manager of Chez Panisse.
Chef Alice Waters opened Chez Panisse in 1971, and it was one of the first restaurants to attract attention by using only locally sourced, organic produce from a network of farmers. It has since built up a reputation worldwide, both among devoted customers and fellow chefs, and is regarded as being extremely influential in the restaurant trade. In the months since Chez Panisse made its announcement, several other high-end restaurants in the US, particularly in California and New York, have followed suit.
The US is the world's largest consumer of bottled water. Last year, the bottled water market in the US was worth an estimated $11 billion (€8 billion). Some restaurants, such as the Ritz-Carlton in New York, take the stuff so seriously they employ water sommeliers. Most of the bottled water served in more expensive restaurants is imported from either France or Italy, which means there is an additional cost to the environment due to shipping.
The bottled water phenomenon reached dizzy new heights last year with the launch of a US product called Bling H20. This isn't about the water, however, it's all about the bottle. Bling H220 comes in frosted bottles, decorated with Swarovski crystals. The two sizes cost $40 (€29) for 75 cl and $24 (€17) for 35cl. Who knows what they sell for in restaurants, but Bling H20 was deemed by Paris Hilton to to be good enough for her dog Tinkerbell to drink. According to its website, "Bling H20 is the inspiration of Kevin G Boyd, Hollywood writer-producer. While working on various studio lots where image is of the utmost importance he noticed you could tell a lot about a person by the bottled water they carried . . . Our mission is to offer a product with an exquisite face to match the exquisite taste . . . It's couture water that makes an announcement like a Rolls Royce Phantom, the Cristal of bottled water. Initially introduced by hand-selected athletes and actors, we are now excitedly expanding our availability . . ."
IT'S CLEAR THAT any significant changes in trends in high-end American restaurants have the capacity to be hugely influential within the industry. Bottled water reputedly has the highest mark-up of any item on a menu, and some restaurateurs in the US have spoken out in the last couple of months to say that they can't afford to remove it. However, if a restaurant is depending so heavily on profits from the mark up it is making from a ready-made product it buys in and sells on, then it needs to take a hard look at its kitchen staff and its food. After all, people come to restaurants - even those that are not expensive or famous - specifically to eat food they haven't prepared themselves, not to drink bottled water they can buy and drink at home for a fraction of the cost.
Trends from the US have a way of making their way over here, sooner or later. So, is banning bottled water from the table something that Dublin's Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud, which has two Michelin stars, might consider doing?
"It's a good idea," admits restaurant manager Stephane Robin. "But the water in Dublin, especially in the city centre, is not very good, so I don't think we'll be doing this." Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud serves four kinds of bottled water - Tipperary, Ballygowan, Evian and Badoit - both still and sparkling. The bottles are all 75cl and sell for €6. "We do always ask people if they would like still, sparkling or tap water, but most people go for bottled water."
"I don't follow trends," says Kevin Thornton of Thornton's restaurant in Dublin, which has one Michelin star. "But never say no. If you say no, you can't say yes. If you had a proper filtering system in a restaurant, there's no reason you couldn't serve only tap water."
Surprisingly, Thornton doesn't know how much bottled water sells for in his own restaurant. "We sell two waters, Tipperary Water and Evian, 75cl each," he says. "How much are they? €3, something like that. I don't know. I'll have to ring you back." When someone else calls back from the restaurant, it emerges that Thornton's actually sells three kinds of bottled water: Tipperary, Evian and Badoit. Tipperary comes in 75cl, and the others in one-lire bottles. All three sell for €6.
IT WASN'T VERY long ago in this country when the notion of paying good money for bottled water invoked both ridicule and amazement. Twenty years ago, we first started getting used to seeing water being listed for sale on restaurant menus, along with alcohol. While there were many who initially never thought bottled water would be a financially successful product, time has proved them wrong.
Ballygowan was the first to offer home-produced bottled water to an incredulous public. After watching the market develop, and realising that there was in fact a demand for the product, several other companies followed.
Bottled water consumption in Ireland is currently 30 litres per capita, compared with 100 litres in Germany and 120 litres in Italy, and Patrick Cooney, who owns Tipperary water, has said that he believes the Irish market is far from fully developed.
While the majority of sales of all bottled waters are through supermarkets and shops, the service industry does form a consistent part of the market. So what about the possible consequence for water producers here, should Irish restaurateurs decide to remove bottled water from their menus?
"I have heard of this happening in the US," says Vivienne Caffrey, brand manager for Tipperary Water, which was established in 1986. "But I don't think it will happen here. Not in the near future anyway. Consumers in Ireland like having the option of bottled or tap water in restaurants. When it comes to the environment, I think that consumers look at a bottle in a restaurant and wonder if it is recyclable or not. I don't think they are thinking about the truck that moves the water around the country."
Yet the impact on the environment that results from using a non-essential product which has to be created and transported from A to B is exactly what certain restaurateurs and consumers in the US are now thinking about. Water it seems, in some restaurants at least, has gone right back to where it started - the humble tap.