Growing up in Baltimore, where things to be proud of on a national scale were cherished and somewhat rare, I was often told that the city had the best drinking water in the country.
It seemed as much a verity as the knowledge that Brooks Robinson is the best third basement in the history of baseball. Yet, unless you actually left town, which few people of my acquaintance did back in the day, how could you know?
“All my life I heard that Baltimore had the best tap water,” said Cheryl Fair, a local filmmaker with deep roots in South Baltimore. “When we’d go other places when I was a child, I always thought the water was nasty.”
The city of Baltimore, via three area reservoirs and as many filtration plants, supplies the metropolitan area with 265 million gallons of drinking water every day.
My old friend Willie Matricciani grew up in Little Italy near the Eastern Avenue Pumping Station, built in 1912. At dinner parties, Willie is fond of running some tap water into a fancy wine glass, swirling it around like a vino aficionado, sipping the nectar delicately and pronouncing: “Loch Raven Reservoir, north end, distilled about 2:35 this afternoon . . .”
To which restaurateur Paul Oliver has one word: “Tertiary!”
“That’s what they taught us at Dundalk Community College back in the 1980s, that Baltimore water is purified three times,” said Oliver, owner of Dalesios, a favorite of a guy who once commanded more than 9,000 Crabtown fire hydrants: Hizzoner William Donald Schaefer.
“If there’s one thing Baltimoreans have confidence in,” said Oliver. “It’s their water.”
As the battered economy plays out in restaurants across Maryland — should we blow $40 on dinner or buy $40 worth of groceries? — drinking water has become a yardstick.
At Dalesios, a 16.9-ounce bottle of San Pellegrino, the classic mineral water from Italy, goes for four bucks. That size provides at least three large glasses of the water, which originates in the Lombardy region before getting zapped with CO2 to provide the tingly fizz.
Served in a classic green bottle with an Old World label, Pellegrino is a treat and not a necessity, certainly not in Baltimore.
“Sales of bottled water are off drastically,” said Oliver. “We ask people what they want, and most of them say, ‘Tap water with a slice of lemon.’”
Rafael Alvarez can be reached at [email protected]
