River Café installs sustainable Eau de Vie filtered water system
The River Café is renowned for its fine food and superb service. The rustic Italian-inspired menu features fresh seasonal produce, delicate fish dishes and exquisite desserts. It’s modern dining at its best, much visited by celebrities, politicians and lesser mortals.
A key concept of the River Café is sustainability. As a company, they care about food miles and responsible sourcing of menu items and other goods. One practice that was causing concern was the huge quantity of bottled Italian mineral water they were buying in.
“Not only do we have limited storage space, but we also started worrying about the ethical viability of transporting bottles of water all the way from Italy,” explains Charles Pullan, manager at the River Café. “On Fridays we used to have 48 cases of water delivered which then had to be stacked away, so we started looking at other ways to serve water.”
About 18 months ago River Café installed an Eau de Vie water system. Eau de Vie passes mains water through a special filter, called SilverSix, to remove the impurities that adversely affect its flavour and smell. The filtered water is then chilled to produce clear, pure tasting water, in both still and sparkling variants.
Although the Eau de Vie water can be bottled, River Café prefers to serve it in straight-sided glass jugs with a lip for pouring. The machine itself is sited under the bar/serving counter so it is easily accessible to all staff.
“Customers are very happy with the Eau de Vie water. They actually like the idea that it isn’t bottled,” says Pullan. “We charge a nominal £1.50 for a ‘bottomless’ jug per table.
“It’s really simple to serve. We don’t have to do anything more than turn on the tap and clean the nozzles at the end of the day. Eau de Vie changes the gas canisters for carbonating the water regularly and are always there if we have a query. The quality of service is excellent.”
The taste of the Eau de Vie water is consistent, despite variations in the mains supply, but Charles Pullan samples a glass of both still and fizzy water every day to be on the safe side.
“Our customers expect everything to be just right so we always double check everything,” he says.
River Café certainly puts the Eau de Vie machine through its paces. Over a four-hour serving period the Eau de Vie system is dispensing at least 400 litres of freshly-fitered water.