Eau de Vie bottled water system cuts down on recycling at Quo Vadis, London
Located in Dean Street in London’s Soho, Quo Vadis serves modern British food from a menu which changes daily. Founded in 1926, Quo Vadis was acquired by restaurateur brothers Sam and Eddie Hart in 2008, and lovingly restored to its former glory. The stylish and elegant venue was named Tatler Restaurant of the Year in 2009.
In London, The Hart Group also operates renowned Spanish restaurant Fino, just off Charlotte Street in Fitzrovia, and tapas restaurant and bar Barrafina, in Frith Street in the heart of the West End.
Beyond the Capital, the group operates Hart’s Restaurant in Nottingham and the adjoining Hart’s Hotel, a boutique property with 32 bedrooms. Hambleton Hall, Hart Group’s country house hotel and restaurant, is located in Oakham, Rutland.
Quo Vadis has installed an Eau de Vie filtered water system from Classeq. The system allows Quo Vadis to serve bottled, chilled mains water that’s been fresh-filtered on site, in both still and sparkling varieties. The water is served to customers in branded Eau de Vie bottles, priced at £2.50.
Hart’s Group partner Sam Hart says: “The key point is that the Eau de Vie bottle is very stylish in terms of the design and graphics. It fits in with the overall ambience of the restaurant and so customers are happy. Purified water is nothing new in itself, but from our point of view as operators, it has to send the right message about quality to customers.”
At the heart of the Eau de Vie package is a special filter system called SilverSix, which removes the impurities that can affect the flavour and smell of mains water. The filtered water is then chilled and dispensed through a tap which delivers still and sparkling variants.
Customers have no concerns about buying water which has been filtered on site, rather than transported to the restaurant in bottles, says Hart. “We say clearly on the menu that we are serving purified water, only very rarely do customers ask. A chilled bottle of water is part of the restaurant experience, and as long as it’s cold and tastes good, their expectations are met.”
The fresh taste of Eau de Vie, delivered by the system’s SilverSix filter cartridges, is the key to customer satisfaction. For operators, the environmental benefits of serving water in reusable bottles, and related cost savings, are an equally important factor.
With the Eau de Vie system at Quo Vadis joining systems already in place at Fino and Barrafina, these benefits are increased. “It’s definitely an environmentally friendly option. Across all three London restaurants we serve about 3,000 bottles a week, so that’s almost 20,000 glass bottles a year which are not going into recycling,” says Hart.
“In addition, only one of our three London restaurants is in a borough where the council offers a recycling service. Even if you have recycling collections, they are normally only once a week, and in London in particular restaurants just don’t have the storage space for empty bottles. Add in the cost of transporting bottled water, as well as the environmental impact, and the benefits are considerable.”
Eau de Vie is exclusively distributed by Classeq, British manufacturer of warewashers, and is available through their network of catering equipment distributors. It offers a complete, branded package, from the stylish and attractive front-of-house bottles, water dispensers and flasks to the backroom wash racks, carriers and rack dollies.
The system has been designed to be simple to manage: from the water filtering to the handling of the reusable bottles, everything is streamlined to assist ease of operation. Installation is designed to minimise disruption. Eau de Vie offers a choice including both free-standing units and remote cassettes, giving owners and designers a flexible system that can easily be integrated into the site,
Eau de Vie also offers a high profit potential, with each litre of bottled water costing only pennies per litre to produce.
Classeq offers full pre- and after-sales support, from site-survey to commissioning, staff training and on-going maintenance.