Photo by egbphoto.

Elisir seems to have a knack for catching our eye with menu quirks. The most recent comes from Eater’s preview of the restaurant: “…there will be a 29-cent surcharge on water since Elisir is only serving the filtered kind.”

We weren’t the only ones who found this a little unusual.

The restaurant is focused on fine dining, hoping to primarily serve one of two tasting menus — a seven-course $75 menu, and 10-course $95 menu. So while it seems unlikely that someone spending that much on dinner is going to balk at the extra 29 cents, it generates a little cognitive dissonance. A water surcharge is something this editor has personally seen only in a mall food court or fast food joint to cover the cost of a cup, not at an upscale restaurant.

When asked why they were charging for water when other restaurants were not — and why they don’t offer an unfiltered option — Justin Kraemer, Elisir’s General Manager/Sommelier responded with surprising frankness.

“The city water in D.C. is notoriously bad and in deference to our guests’ health we don’t want to offer “Chateau Potomac”. If people insist, we will of course oblige them with tap water, but we feel that bottomless sparkling or still bottled water for .29C is more than fair.”

Perhaps Elisir is leading the charge to become more like New York and San Francisco, where restaurants are charging diners up to $5 for bottles of water. Meanwhile, many D.C. restaurants such as Bar Pilar, Founding Farmers, and Jack Rose, now use the Natura water filtering system, but are not charging diners for water, though the costs for filtered water are usually factored into overhead and still end up on the bill. It just seems a little tacky to append that as a separate charge on a bill, especially when the cost of the average check will be so high.

How do you feel about Elisir’s water charge? Should other restaurants follow their lead?