In 2007, Alice Waters of internationally acclaimed Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., announced to her dining public that she would no longer offer bottled water on her menu. The environmentally conscious chef felt the eco footprint left by high use of bottled H20 — something the restaurant industry contributes to in mass quantities — was too big.

Perhaps it's ironic — perhaps not — that the American Water Works Association just spent a week in drought-stricken Georgia at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta. The Annual Conference and Exposition looks at ways the world can conserve and rethink its use of our most precious resource.

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One of the group's biggest goals is a grass-roots media campaign to promote the use of tap water. With a tagline of "Only Tap Water Delivers," AWWA promotes the value of tap water and encourages communities to invest in water infrastructure and build consumer confidence in it. Part of the exposition, which is held each year and lures close to 12,000 attendees, is a "best of the best" tap water taste test.

That's where I come in. Along with some brainiac scientists and a few other media folk, I was asked to sample, then judge, the nation's best tap water in a blind taste test. It's not as easy as it sounds. Water, after all, isn't really supposed to taste like much of anything.

But the differences in the five finalists from participating utilities were vast — from chemical to chlorine, saline to surreally flavorless. In the end, the Louisville Water Co. that services Kentucky and Tennessee won, followed closely by Puerto Rico, the city of Blythe, Ga., (which tied with Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District in Utah for third place) and the Grand Forks Water Utility in North Dakota. Talk about grass roots.

A new book, "Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It" (Bloomsbury, 2008, $24.99), by environmental journalist Elizabeth Royte, explores the corporate handling of water and how its marketing has turned us into a nation of bottle-sipping maniacs. Though she's been criticized for leaning a little too much to the left in her account of water's history, especially the tale of woe in Fryeburg, Maine (where Nestle taps around 800,000 gallons a day and sells it as Poland Spring), the book makes a strong point about our use of bottled water and why we don't need it.

Right or left, the truth is that bottled water does leave too large of an eco footprint: Oil is used to make the plastic; oil is consumed in water's transport; bottles litter our landfills. (Royte estimates that only 14 percent of water bottles are recycled.)

In Georgia, we're in an even bigger mess, since our tap water is under siege from Mother Nature. Now more than ever, we need to conserve. Restaurants should be doing their part, and some are: Buckhead Life restaurants have reduced consumption by offering water only if it's asked for, offering customers hand sanitizers in lieu of turning on the faucet and using energy-efficient dishwashers with full-load washes only, as well as water faucet aerators in the bathrooms that allow water pressure to remain the same while using less of the wet stuff.

Tolstoy once remarked how hard it is to fill the bucket only a drop at a time, but that if everyone would contribute the bucket would fill nonetheless.

Savor seasonal flavors

Jay Swift, who made a name for himself as the executive chef of Midtown's South City Kitchen and Rainwater in Alpharetta, is opening his close-to-eponymous restaurant, 4th & Swift, as soon as his liquor license is approved, which should be right about ... now. Calling 4th & Swift an "all-American tavern with modern American comfort food," Swift says the menu will be chef-driven with about 12 seasonally inspired menu mainstays, like chilled, "first of summer" tomato soup with zucchini and goat cheese fritters and oven roasted Amish chicken with warm bread salad and maple vinegar jus. A market menu with goodies like grilled Georgia white shrimp with chickpeas and tapenade and oak-roasted lamb sirloin with baby artichokes and summer squash with a cucumber-mint dressing will change more frequently. The wine list boasts 116 varietals and the 15 to 20 beers make use of the term "tavern." Swift hopes to be open by the end of this week. 4th & Swift, 621 North Ave., B-100, N.E., 678-904-0160, www.4thandswift.com.

Get into the conversation: Visit my blog at www.ajc.com /tabletalk. If your restaurant is new, closing or undergoing changes, or you have a food-related event, we want to hear from you. Send the information — including your name, phone number, e-mail and Web site if you have one — to mford@ajc.com.