Five star London hotel Claridges has introduced a staggering choice of waters into its restaurant.
If you thought water was just er – water, then think again. Swish London hotel Claridge’s has announced that it is introducing a ‘water list’ – like a wine list, into its bar and restaurant. It will give diners the opportunity to choose from 32 bottles of the finest water. Some are rich in minerals, others smooth and delicate.
The choice is bewildering. If you fancy splashing out £21 for example, you can go for the Volcanic, a water from the bottom of an extinct volcano in New Zealand. A connoisseurs’ choice no doubt. Then there’s Italian spring water Acqua di Fiuggi drunk, so they say, by Michelangelo to relieve his kidney stones. Other choices of European waters are Volvic and Perrier from France, a glacial spring water from Norway, and several British brands coming from springs in England, Scotland and Wales.
This doesn’t seem a particularly environmentally friendly move. The carbon footprint of the non-British waters must be enormous. As well as the water from New Zealand, there’s one called Cloud Juice from Tasmania and another from a remote lake near Hawaii. A mountain range in India provides another exotic sounding liquid – Just Born Spring Drops (great, apparently, if you’ve got a delicate digestion), while there’s also water from icebergs off Newfoundland, and another that started life as snow in the Andes. Who’d dare to ask for ‘a glass of tap’ now?
