A British restaurant is launching the U.K.’s first water menu

Water "sommelier" Doran Binder has curated the water menu for the French-style restaurant in northern England. (courtesy Doran Binder via CNN Newsource)

LONDON, U.K. — The French are known for their love of fine wines. La Popote, a French-style restaurant in northern England, is no exception.

The Michelin Guide-listed eatery in the county of Cheshire offers diners the choice of almost 140 varieties of wine. But now the business is taking a bold step to cater for discerning non-drinkers by offering an entire menu of bottled water.

Diners will have the choice of three different bottles of still water and four sparkling beginning Friday, as well as complimentary tap water.

La Popote is tapping into a global trend away from alcohol. For example, based on a Gallup poll last year, 58 per cent of adult Americans drink alcohol, down from 67 per cent in 2022. A growing number of Americans are giving up alcohol, whether permanently or temporarily, while many restaurants are offering a bigger range of mocktails, and sober bars and non-alcoholic bottle shops are becoming increasingly popular.

Chef Joseph Rawlins, who founded and runs La Popote with his French partner Gaëlle Radigon, said they had initially been approached about the idea by Doran Binder, who was already supplying the restaurant with their ‘house’ water under his Crag Spring Water brand. A water sommelier, certified by the Fine Water Academy, Binder first suggested the idea of a water menu to the couple three years ago.

“I laughed it off,” Rawlins told CNN. “I initially thought it was a ridiculous idea.”

But when Binder invited the couple to a tasting at the “water bar” he owns in the Peak District, a national park in north-central England, they were sold.

“It was mind-blowing,” Rawlins said of the experience, adding that he now believes that “water isn’t just water.”

At that first tasting, they tried five or six different varieties. “Then we did a second tasting with exactly the same waters but we paired them with certain foods – like Manchego cheese, Comté cheese, chocolate, Parma ham, olives. Like with a wine, the taste just changed.”

The restaurant is the first in Britain to offer a water menu, according to Binder, and one of only a handful in the world.

Binder curated La Popote’s water menu, which features a selection from across Europe, including Britain, France, Spain and Portugal. Prices range from £5 (C$8) for a large bottle of his Crag brand to £19 (US$30) for The Palace of Vidago, a Portuguese sparkling water.

“The measurement of minerals in water is what drives taste and flavor,” Binder told CNN. That measurement is called Total Dissolved Solids, or TDS, he said.

“Distilled water is zero TDS. It’s brilliant for cleaning windows, brilliant for electrical appliances, brilliant for your car battery – rubbish for the human being,” he said, noting that sea water is at the other end of the spectrum with 30,000-40,000 TDS.

The restaurant’s range goes from 14 TDS in the Lauretana sparkling mineral water from Italy to 3,300 for the Vichy Celastins from France.

The French water initially tastes rather salty, Rawlins said. “Then you put it with something that’s quite salty like a Parma ham and they both naturally balance each other out, so the water is not salty anymore and it’s a longer-lasting flavor of the ham in your mouth.”

How the water is served is also important, Rawlins said. “We recommend it at room temperature with ice and a slice of lemon. Water is like wine – if it’s too cold, it kills all the flavor.”

The water menu is giving diners “another dimension,” he added, noting that “a lot of people are drinking less now.”

Binder, who has never drunk alcohol, agrees. “There are more and more people who don’t drink alcohol, like me. I’m a massive foodie and when I go to a restaurant they can’t wait to throw a wine menu in front of my nose, which will never be of interest to me.

“But put a water menu in front of me and now you’ve opened up a whole new revenue stream. It’s appealing to restaurants and it’s appealing to more and more health-conscious people and really it’s all about the epicurean experience.”

Jordan Valinsky contributed to this report.