UPDATE: K2 Charges for Water

... more on new restaurant K2 (at 3916 W. Sunset) charging for filtered water ...

I checked with Mark Peel, the owner/chef of Campanile, Tar Pit, and The Point, who offered some good background and a tip.

First, he disputes my assertion that most good restaurants in town filter the water they serve customers, because, he says, DWP water out of the tap tastes just fine IF you do one thing.

Mark, who says he's one of 3 people in LA who actually read the report DWP sends to water customers, notes that LA's water exceeds federal water quality levels. But the reason it doesn't taste as good out of the tap as, say, New York's fabled Catskillsian tap water ... is because it's not cold out of the tap. Chill it, and you'll like it.

Two stories:

-- Years ago, Mark got fed up paying the bill for water cooler water, so he filled the big 5-gallon jug with tap water. He did it for a year. Nobody noticed.

-- 22 years ago, when LaBrea Bakery started, everybody said, "You can't make good bread here! Not like New York! The water's no good! You'll be sorry!" (All of which is eerily reminiscent of what they said about starting a local news radio station. -- Ed.) But they used water straight from the tap. The trick, he says, was that they chilled it to the proper temperature to slow fermentation, just like Gotham's bakeries warm their tap water a little in the winter. And, he says, LaBrea Bakery breads are better than New York's. (The best bread and pastrami. Now we just need a decent baseball team. -- Ed.)

By the way, I'm very pleased to announce that, starting this weekend, Mark will be joining Off-Ramp for a regular food segment. The first one airs this weekend. This augments our regular food reporting, which includes the Eat-LA/Off-Ramp Collaboration.