While the best hotels and fine dining restaurants are meticulous about the food ingredients they use, they may have less control over one key ingredient: the water that comes from their taps. Not only are there potential safety concerns around the use of tap water, but chefs and sommeliers say that the water we drink can affect how we perceive the taste of food and wine – be it water from the tap or bottled mineral waters, which may not be neutral tasting or even slightly saline.
Because mineral water, by definition, must be bottled from the spring at source, importing it has high environmental costs in terms of shipping it around the globe. Also, in recent years, the mineral water industry has been tainted by scandal, with various brands found to contain pesticides or fungicides, while some also tested positive for fecal matter. Investigations found that water companies in Europe had used illegal treatments on mineral water, disinfecting contaminated water with UV or carbon filters.
British celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal, famous for his experiments in molecular gastronomy and bringing science into the kitchen, has long swapped bottled mineral water for a high-end filtration system at his three-Michelin-starred The Fat Duck and The Hind’s Head in Bray, Berkshire, as well as at Dinner by Heston at the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park.
Nordaq, a family-owned Swedish company, has for the past two decades been transforming how chefs like Blumenthal use and serve water in top hotels and restaurants around the world. Nordaq filters tap water at each site using its patented water filtration system that removes chemicals, impurities and unwanted flavours but retains healthy natural salts and minerals that give it a satisfying rounded mouthfeel. It enables restaurants, bars and hotels to offer high-quality, chilled still or sparkling water filtered on-site and served in reusable glass bottles.
Nordaq chief executive Johanna Mattsson highlights the environmental cost of bottled water companies “shipping water over water”.
“France and Italy are among the top five bottled water exporters today, while Hong Kong is the second largest,” she says. “These shipments between continents are, according to us, causing a huge environmental impact. Also, about 25 million tonnes of plastic from water bottles ended up in the sea last year.”
Providing a sustainable local solution, Nordaq water is now used in kitchens and served to guests at luxury establishments in 65 countries. Yet, despite its huge reach, Mattsson has plans for even greater expansion. A significant part of this growth will be with the Hong Kong-based Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, which plans to open 42 new hotels over the next three years. “Across the world from Spain to the Cayman Islands – Nordaq will be there, too,” says Mattsson.
Nordaq’s partnership with Mandarin Oriental began in 2010. The hotel group was its first client in Hong Kong, although the filtration company already had a presence in Asia with celebrated chef Andre Chiang and the Raffles hotel in Singapore, for example. With the Mandarin Oriental partnership, its Eastern – and global – business significantly expanded. Now its water is found in every Mandarin Oriental hotel around the world, except two in the US, in Boston and New York City (a function of state policy rather than the hotel group’s preference, says Mattsson).
Dinner by Heston at the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park offers a sustainability themed, three-course, set lunch menu which champions a zero-waste approach, the use of undervalued ingredients, and environmentally friendly sourcing. And it is these themes – science and sustainability – that Nordaq champions. Mattsson explains how the company was first set up in response to the widespread use of the same luxury water brands such as Evian and Perrier all over the world, and the environmental impacts associated with this.
Nordaq’s smart filtration system goes head to head with mineral waters by providing identical, high-quality water in each destination in which it is installed. The inorganic salts and small amounts of organic matter in tap water changes from country to country, and even within regions, as in the US, so Nordaq’s artificial intelligence-powered system adjusts accordingly.
The purified water comes through a countertop tap or runs through a larger machine that bottles and caps the water – either sparkling or still – in recycled glass bottles. If an establishment for some reason prefers not to use glass, Nordaq also offers Tritan bottles made from BPA-free plastic that can be machine-washed and reused. The company now has production sites in Europe, Asia and the US, making supplying their customers around the globe quicker and easier.
Smaller restaurants may opt for countertop taps, while larger hotels may have taps and bottling machines. The system saves space, with restaurants, bars and hotels not needing to store vast reserves of bottled mineral water.
“We offer the highest quality, locally sourced natural water, purified and bottled on the spot anywhere in the world, using refillable, recycled glass bottles, without the expense, hassle and pollution of shipping them halfway around the world,” says Mattsson. “This eliminates the use of single-use plastic, one of the greatest threats to the environment.”
While Nordaq has strong environmental credentials, for chefs it is the taste – or lack thereof – of the water that has major appeal. Mattsson likes to relate how when celebrity chef Thomas Keller of The French Laundry in California, which was voted World’s Best Restaurant by 50 Best in 2003 and 2004, first tasted Nordaq water on a trip to Europe, he insisted on a Nordaq machine and engineer joining him on the flight back to the US.
Mattsson’s mission is now to appeal to more chefs and hotels, but also cruise lines, spas and health clubs – anywhere where single-use plastic bottles is the norm.
