What's the going rate for a 1l bottle of vittel in a very good (but not extravagant) restaurant/piano-restaurant? As I prefer lively pubs/eateries, I don't really visit high-end establishments very often. I did go to one when I was in Prague last weekend, and got charged 240 crowns (€7.52/$9.17) for one litre of water!!! My main meal (a big, tasty beef dish that was presented impeccably) cost 520 crowns, so it wasn't that the place was super-expensive across the board.
important sidenote: The drinks menu wasn't distributed unless specifically requested (which I foolishly didn't do ...still I don't think I could have survived and/or gotten away with not drinking even a bit of water!)
Questions: 1) What's the most you've ever been charged for a litre of water in absolute money terms?
2) What's the most you've paid for a litre of water as a proportion of the meal's price?
3) Would you bother writing a complaint about this cheeky rip-off method?

I believe the highest I've seen is $7.50.

You could always ask the cost if it's an issue, it's not like they will hide it from you.

I paid €10 for a litre of Perrier at Le Cinq at the Four Seasons Hotel George V Paris.

I paid $7 yesterday at Blue Fin in Manhattan.

You could always ask the cost if it's an issue, it's not like they will hide it from you.

I know...but this doesn't prevent me from feeling a bit cheated!Wasn't counting the pennies but did get surprised by the price of something you can't really do without at an otherwise not very expensive place.

In Paris, a couple of weeks ago, paid 5 euros for a litre of bottled water; dinners ran about 35 euros, nice restaurants but not super-fancy. Talk about nursing a drink!

I paid €10 for a litre of Perrier at Le Cinq at the Four Seasons Hotel George V Paris.


Slightly OT, but you'd pay the same for a glass of diet coke in the Galerie at the FS George V!!

I remember paying $10USD for a bottle of San Pellegrino in NYC (cannot remember where) and £7.50 for a bottle of Evian somewhere in London. Scandalous prices!!

Well they're going to aren't they? With all the drop in wine sales with the mark-up that there is there, it stands to reason that they're going to try and recoup it somewhere.

I'm not saying that I approve, but in some of the places quoted above the price of a bottle of water is totally eclipsed by the price of everything else!

That sounded really high to me and then I just look and we paid about 7.50 euros a bottle at L'Ousteau de Baumaniere, but nothing for water at Pierre Gagniare (and we went through several bottles). I suppose when you're paying 300 euros each for your food, they can throw in some bottles of water.

I buy Voss water for our home use. I've seen that everywhere from $3.50 to $8 a bottle at the market. I've never seen it at a restaurant, but I'd hate to see what they'd mark that up to.

There's almost no where I've been in Europe where the beverages haven't been expensive in relation to the food, and I've been many places where the table wine and local beer are cheaper than soft drinks.

Off-Topic: letiole, you went to l'Oustau! Is it still a perfect place? Memories of breakfast outdoors by the lovely pool (in the cluster of apartments just down the hill from the main building) are still clear and sweet.

On-Topic: Look, the price of anything at a restaurant is a function not only of the cost of that item, but also the cost of its preparation and, much more importantly, the cost of maintaining the infrastructure that separates slopholes from good neighborhood places, and that separates good neighborhood places from top-class eateries. The creme de la creme hires sufficient staff (including both those you see and those you don't), buys and stores the right type of crystal for each wine or drink, and refreshes the physical facility often enough so that it doesn't look tired. Seems to me perfectly reasonable that those costs get apportioned to both labor-intensive items like the Frog Souffle and non-labor-intensive items like the Badoit.

At Hilton London Heathrow Airport, I can't even recall the price so outrageous it was: at the Brasserie which is the informal restaurant in the atrium, it was cheaper to order a pint of beer than a small bottle of water! Something like 8 or 9 GBP IIRC. Scandalous!

Slightly OT, but you'd pay the same for a glass of diet coke in the Galerie at the FS George V!!

I remember paying $10USD for a bottle of San Pellegrino in NYC (cannot remember where) and £7.50 for a bottle of Evian somewhere in London. Scandalous prices!!

I've been to Europe 9 times (8 times to both Paris and London) and I still am amazed at how expensive beverages are at cafes and restaurants. Are Europeans not as thirsty as Americans?

I've been to Europe 9 times (8 times to both Paris and London) and I still am amazed at how expensive beverages are at cafes and restaurants. Are Europeans not as thirsty as Americans?

Well, the Germans, Italians, Greeks, Spaniards, and the Brits I have seen, on the whole, seem to prefer "liquid diets"....... perhaps they don't eat food but fill up on the drinks?

One Aldwych in London serve Voss water, in the restaurants and in the Lobby Bar. I recall it to be a reasonable (for London standards) £4 or so for a bottle of water. I recall that the £7.50 water was at an Ian Schrager hotel, so at the Sanderson or St. Martin's Lane -- even the Dorchester didn't charge that much for water.......

Paid EUR 15 a bottle of Chateldon mineral water at Chen, Soleil d'est in Paris last November. On the bottle is a text about the merit of this water spring used by Louis XIV at Versailles. It has nothing special besides this bit of trivia, and I suppose they used it to rack up the price.

The restaurant was in the EUR 150 range for dinner (worth it if you're into Chinese food) without wine (but including mineral water...) but it STILL is too much for water.

Off-Topic: letiole, you went to l'Oustau! Is it still a perfect place? Memories of breakfast outdoors by the lovely pool (in the cluster of apartments just down the hill from the main building) are still clear and sweet.

wideman: It's still very much perfect. I just love the rocky outcroppings, the star they project on them at night - it's really wonderful. Thought I'd let you know we just stocked up on Lobello too. We found lots of different flavors we hadn't seen before. You've definitely got us hooked. :)

We were at the Oustau during the height of asparagus season (in May), and the preparations were out of this world.

re Labello: If you run low, you can get Labello at a decent price from a Canadian outfit, www.feelbest.com. The good news about that is that you can get Labello without having to go to France/Europe. Unfortunately, the bad news is that there's 1 less reason to insist on a long weekend in Paris. (Though until one can buy Jipépé socks online, the Paris trips will still be required.)

I think the worst I have seen was for a half a can of coke (served in a glass of course ;) ) in Venizia, plaza san marco for 11E. That hurts believe me, especially when you get the bill!

Actually, if you think about it, the average 500 ml bottle of water in a place like London seems to be around £1.75, which I picked from what I'd consider to be an average price, decent menu from Central London--Carluccio's.

On the other hand, according to Friday's Financial Times, the average price of petrol in London--and this seems to be an all-time high, according to them, and I'm they follow the price of petrol pretty closely being, you know, FT and all--is going to be an eyeball busting 82.3p, or roughly less than one quarter of the price of that bottle of water.

So, basically £3.50 for a liter of water to 82.3p for a litre of gas. Yeah. That's a little excessive. The U.S. is no better. If you order a cheap bottle of still water at some kind of quick-to-go kind of place, it'll cost you between $1.00 and $2.50 which, depending on the week, is about the same as a gallon of gas, as well, even though you get MAYBE 16 fluid ounces. And I would guess, based on all the chatter about refineries, that the gas is probably more extensively refined. ;)

Of course, in America, you could always order tap water which, in many cases, is exactly what they'd give you in a bottle, since a lot of large manufacturers simply take municipal water and place it in bottles. And, of course, if you like chemicals, carbonation and sugar in your municipal water, you can always buy a can or bottle of soda, ranging from 50 cents to $1.50--of course, realizing that all that stuff adds MAYBE about 2-4 cents per item.

Prague is a different matter, of course... waiters in many restaurants there have been screwing patrons, English speaking ones in particular, for years on pretty much any food item, water inclusive. I usually just ask for the menu in German, have my companion ask for theirs in English and compare. I've challenged a waiter on this before in Prague and they normally apologize and say it's an error. Yeah. Sure. I didn't see a menu correction the next time, either.

Timothy

Perhaps this thread explains why the Bush Administration wants Hydrogen cell cars... its exhaust is worth more than oil! ;) I wonder if Coke will sell it under the Dasani brand? ;)

$10 for a bottle of Voss in New York. (1 liter)

James Smith