For diners at a fancy restaurant in Cheshire, there is now a new twist to the usual routine. First comes La Popote\u2019s menu, created by the owners, the chef Joe Rawlins and Ga\u00eblle Radigon, who live upstairs with their children. Next comes the wine list, which includes more than 100 bottles. And then, in what is very much a\u00a0first for Cheshire, a water list.<\/p>\n
Rawlins, 32, presents the new menu as I get comfy in the dining room in a converted redbrick barn in Marton, a village halfway between Manchester and Stoke-on-Trent. A choice of seven waters ranges from a \u00a35 bottle of Crag, which comes from the nearby Peak District, to Vidago, a mineral-rich water from a Portuguese spa town, which will cost you \u00a319.<\/p>\n
At a loss as to why I would need a\u00a0water menu \u2013 or how a\u00a0bottle could cost more than I\u00a0would spend\u00a0on wine \u2013 I consult La Popote\u2019s water sommelier. Doran Binder, who created the menu, is part of a growing global mission of water evangelists with an unquenchable conviction. For Binder and his ilk, water has for too long been sidelined. He believes it deserves to\u00a0be celebrated as a proper drink.<\/p>\n
Joe Rawlins, the chef patron at La Popote, pours Simon Usborne a glass. Photograph: Shaw and Shaw\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
\u201cWater is a beautiful thing and I just want people to experiment and enjoy it in a way that they\u2019ve never done before,\u201d says Binder, 53, whose brimming passion gives his speech a staccato energy. Sensing my scepticism, he tells me it\u2019s OK to laugh at the concept of water connoisseurship. \u201cI\u2019ve been trying to get restaurants to do this for years and I think people are nervous, because you\u2019re either going to be a pioneer or a joke. It\u2019s a gamble, but it\u2019s actually better when people laugh, because, to me, it just shows how poor our relationship with water is.\u201d<\/p>\n
I go for the crab starter, a classic mayonnaise-based dish with fennel and apple. \u201cI\u2019d probably try the Lauretana, or maybe Icelandic Glacial Water if you didn\u2019t want sparkling, just because it\u2019s also super-low and isn\u2019t going to overpower the delicate crab,\u201d says Binder, whose Viking-red beard (he is half Danish) inspired his online persona, the Bearded Water Sommelier. He tells me he gets 7m views a month across social media.<\/p>\n
\u201cSuper-low\u201d refers to the minerality of water, the crucial factor in determining its taste. I am a water laggard, I warn Binder, who is helping to train the restaurant\u2019s waiting staff. I never order bottled water and quite like my local hard, limescale-rich London tap water, with its notes of chlorine. Other than briefly noting the softer tap water in other parts of the country, I have rarely given water a\u00a0second\u00a0thought.<\/p>\n
Anyway, mineral content can be measured by evaporating a sample and weighing what is left as milligrams per litre of total dissolved solids (TDS). We\u00a0are talking sodium, calcium, magnesium and potassium. Low\u2011TDS, or soft, waters are delicate and have changed little since they fell from the sky, whether they have been locked in\u00a0a\u00a0glacier or cycled quickly through a spring. High-TDS, or hard, waters may have\u00a0spent years sloshing around rocks, absorbing minerals underground.<\/p>\n
Usborne, Binder and Rawlins sample the menu. Photograph: Shaw and Shaw\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
Geology dictates the combi\u00adnation and quantity of these minerals and creates a water\u2019s taste. \u201cIf it\u2019s sodium, it\u2019s salty. If\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0calcium, it\u2019s slightly sweet. And if it\u2019s magnesium, it\u2019s slightly bitter,\u201d Binder says.<\/p>\n
I go for the Lauretana (\u00a312 a bottle), a gently carbonated spring water from the Piedmont region in north-west Italy. It has a TDS of just 14, which is about as low as it gets. A waiter pours me a glass. \u201cWe\u00a0always serve water in wine glasses; it shows it respect,\u201d says Binder, who also drinks it only at room temperature \u2013 he says chilling\u00a0it kills any flavour.<\/p>\n
I swill a sip around my mouth before drinking. It\u2019s a weird sensation. The water is so soft and smooth that it almost slides, rather than flows, off my tongue. It\u2019s like drinking an Herm\u00e8s scarf. Yet, a second later, I am left with a tacky, metallic dryness in my mouth\u00a0\u2013 something to do with the water\u2019s low pH level, apparently. When I follow a forkful of salty crab with another sip, the dryness goes away and the water enhances the crab\u2019s creaminess. It works strangely well.<\/p>\n
We always serve water in wine glasses. It shows it respect<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
During a fuller tasting session after lunch, Binder guides me to the opposite end of the scale with a glass of Vichy C\u00e9lestins (\u00a39), from the spa town of Vichy in central France. Its huge TDS of more than 3,300 (UK tap water tends to be below 400) is evident the second I take a sip. It takes me a moment to work out what is going on. \u201cTell me that isn\u2019t flipping nuts!\u201d Binder says, almost levitating as he watches me. \u201cThis is my favourite water in the world.\u201d It has a sweet brackishness and a gentle, natural fizz (many waters absorb CO2 underground). It\u2019s unlike anything I have tasted, like a softened, strangely moreish seawater. Binder recommends it as a complement to heavier dishes such as beef.<\/p>\n
Binder and La Popote see an opportunity in the shift away from booze<\/a>, positioning water as a rival not just to wine, but also to the low- or no-alcohol drinks, seltzers and mocktails that are flooding the market. \u201cEven in France, people are saying they want more non-alcoholic choices,\u201d says Radigon, 37, who met Rawlins at another restaurant. They took over La Popote in 2019. \u201cWhen I was pregnant, I found it was so limited. We need to move on with what people want.\u201d<\/p>\n
If health is driving the shift, even if that means \u201czebra\u201d drinking \u2013 alternating between booze and no alcohol \u2013 then hydro evangelists believe that waters of note are going to be hard to beat when so many alternatives are packed with sugar and additives.<\/p>\n
Yet even Binder was sceptical not long ago. He had been working in the haircare industry in New York when, after a divorce, he bought the Crag Inn, a failing pub in the Peak District, about 10 miles from La Popote. He thought about reviving it, despite being teetotal, while regularly travelling back to New York for work. But when he got the pub\u2019s neglected spring fixed and tested, he learned he was sitting on a liquid goldmine of uncommonly clean, silky water.<\/p>\n
\u201cI phoned Doran when he was in New York and said: \u2018You should sell everything you\u2019ve got, come back here and start bottling this stuff,\u2019\u201d says Richard Taylor, a veteran water supply engineer at Blair Water Group, who did the work.<\/p>\n
By 2018, Binder had quit his job to launch Crag spring water, turning the pub into a ramshackle bottling plant with a water bar for tastings. Today, a team of 15 produces more than 12,000 bottles a week from the spring under the pub\u2019s car park. They use only reusable glass bottles, which the company collects when it delivers. La Popote was one of the first restaurants to sign up. Other customers have included Sketch, the high-end restaurant in Mayfair, London, and the grocery service Modern Milkman.<\/p>\n
Rawlins and his wife Ga\u00eblle Radigon, who also owns La Popote. Photograph: Shaw and Shaw\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
Stunned by early interest, Binder\u00a0wanted to learn more about his water. He heard about Michael Mascha, an Austrian in Texas whom Binder describes as the \u201cgodfather of water\u201d. An original 1990s tech guy, Mascha lost out in the first dotcom bust. At about the same time, his cardiologist advised him to give up wine. Although he had a cellar full of it, he reluctantly agreed to stick to water.<\/p>\n
Frustrated by the standard \u201cstill or sparkling?\u201d offer, he began discovering new labels. In 2002, he founded FineWaters, which now has a spin-off society, academy, conference and consulting arm. His book of the same name is a guide to 100 premium waters, from Abatilles in France to Zaje\u010dick\u00e1 ho\u0159k\u00e1, a rich Czech water that has been prized for its purported health benefits since the 16th century.<\/p>\n
Mascha runs an online training course for fellow enthusiasts and has certified more than 100 sommeliers, including Binder. He says demand is fizzing. \u201cWe\u2019re finally moving away from considering water just for hydration and towards water as\u00a0an experience,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u2018It works strangely well.\u2019 Photograph: Shaw and Shaw\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
He is not alone in spotting momentum at the top end of the market. \u201cWhat feels different now is the kind of customer we\u2019re getting,\u201d says Michael Tanousis, who in 2007 launched the British online water boutique Aqua Amore, which has seen demand grow steadily in recent years. \u201cPeople are coming to us looking for specifics, not just \u2018bottled water\u2019. It\u2019s \u2018low-sodium\u2019 or \u2018high-mineral\u2019, or more provenance-driven.\u201d<\/p>\n
But isn\u2019t bottled water an environmental disaster? Mascha acknowledges the impact of the wider industry, but says the vast majority of what people buy is processed. \u201cIt\u2019s basically tap water that runs into a factory and then people drive to supermarkets to buy plastic bottles and take it home; it\u2019s totally stupid,\u201d he says. (If it doesn\u2019t say \u201cnatural\u201d, \u201cspring\u201d or \u201cmineral\u201d on the bottle, it\u2019s probably packaged tap water.) He\u00a0doesn\u2019t see premium bottles as an alternative to tap water, which he drinks, but to wine or other occasional drinks. \u201cWhat we\u2019re talking about is waters that are unique, that have a\u00a0terroir and\u00a0deserve to be bottled,\u201d Mascha\u00a0says.<\/p>\n
Binder urges more water brands to commit to collecting reusable glass bottles; while glass bottles can be recycled, they often aren\u2019t, which wastes even more of the huge amount of energy it takes to make and ship them.<\/p>\n
Rawlins may feel like a pioneer, but water menus are not new. Mascha says more than a dozen restaurants in the US have one. In the UK, Claridge\u2019s tried one in 2007, but it didn\u2019t stick. A growing community of water sommeliers and enthusiasts believe consumers are now ready after years in which water has served only as a staple. \u201cIn Italy or France, people have a much better understanding, but here there has been a bit of a disconnect,\u201d says Milin Patel, an environmental scientist turned drinking water expert in south-west London. \u201cI also don\u2019t think Peckham Spring did us any favours,\u201d he adds, recalling a 1992 episode of Only Fools and Horses (Mother Nature\u2019s Son) in which Del\u00a0Boy fraudulently bottled tap water in his flat.<\/p>\n
As part of his work, Patel carries out water tastings for school and corporate groups. \u201cYou see it in their eyes. They\u2019re like: \u2018Oh, wow, I\u2019ve never looked at water in this way,\u2019\u201d he says. He hopes growing understanding of water may inspire new respect for all our water uses and sources.<\/p>\n
People are coming to us looking for specifics. It\u2019s \u2018low-sodium\u2019 or \u2018high-mineral\u2019, or more provenance-driven<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Growing awareness has inspired producers, too. In a few months\u2019 time, Murray Diplock will start selling the spring water that irrigates his cress farm from a chalk aquifer in the Test valley in Hampshire. Diplock and his family have always drunk the water themselves, filling old milk bottles with it. He has now invested in a\u00a0small bottling plant and created a\u00a0brand: Chorq.<\/p>\n
As well as using standard glass bottles, Diplock wants to lean into the no-alcohol market with carbonated Chorq in champagne-style bottles with corks that pop. \u201cWe want to start running courses and tastings to help explain to people what we\u2019re doing and why,\u201d he says. \u201cWater is piquing everyone\u2019s interest and we\u2019re hoping it\u2019s about to really take off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Back in Cheshire, Rawlins hopes\u00a0to add a water night to the steak and cheese nights he already offers. He insists the menu is no gimmick. \u201cWe might chop and change the waters, but the list is here to stay,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Before I leave La Popote, I try the \u00a319 Vidago, which is sold in limited numbers in Lalique-like frosted bottles. With a TDS of nearly 3,000, it\u2019s almost as rich as Vichy C\u00e9lestins, but it tastes more gently salted. I try another sip with some Parma ham; the salt in the water seems to disappear as the tastes mingle in my mouth.<\/p>\n
Whether or not I have soaked up all of Binder\u2019s zeal, the experience has been eye-opening \u2013 and certainly more mindful than my usual approach to food and drink, which involves consuming it like a hungry pelican. \u201cI spend my life playing with food and water like this and even now it\u2019s still flipping mind-blowing for me,\u201d Binder says.\u00a0He pours out one more glass and hands it to me: \u201cWait till you try this …\u201d<\/p>\n
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