At a small but growing number of sustainably inclined Bay Area restaurants, bottled water has become as much of an outcast as farmed salmon and out-of-season tomatoes. Instead of bottled water, diners now are served free carafes of — gasp! — tap water. It’s filtered and comes still or sparkling, fizzed up by a soda-fountain-style carbonating machine.
Incanto, in San Francisco’s Noe Valley, and Poggio, in Sausalito, pioneered the trend four years ago. But for several years, no other restaurants wanted to give up popular — and profitable — bottled water.
Then Nopa, the San Francisco North of Panhandle hot spot, took the plunge when it opened last summer. And so did Ici, the Berkeley ice cream boutique.
And now, Chez Panisse, the godmother of the sustainability movement, is jumping on board, serving East Bay MUD’s finest, filtered and bubbly in carafes approved by Alice Waters herself.
Why, you ask, if it was profitable are they giving it up? Because it takes a lot of energy to bottle water and ship it from Europe. These restaurants are getting a lot of upscale street cred for taking the environmentally conscious route.
Bottled water is so over. It’s the ultimate industrial consumerist product in a world that is beginning to realize that things have to change.