A recent ruling by Italy’s Supreme Court that restaurants can refuse to serve customers tap water has made international headlines in recent days.
The case arose after a tourist sued the five-star Hotel Sassongher in Corvara for refusing to give her tap water during meals, offering only mineral water at €7 per bottle.
The Court of Cassation’s ruling – upholding two lower court judgments – is in stark contrast to the laws in France, where a restaurant was fined €8,000 at the start of this year for denying a customer tap water.
Spain, Portugal and several other European countries have similar laws protecting the right of consumers to be served tap water if they ask for it. So why is Italy bucking the trend?
Italians have a strong bias in favour of bottled water, consuming more than any other European country and the second-highest amount of any other country in the world after Mexico.
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When surveyed on the subject, Italians point to the perceived unpleasant taste of tap water, its hardness, and concerns around hygiene and safety as reasons for their preference. Suffice it to say that tap water is generally viewed with some mistrust.
While many cafes in Italy will offer a glass of tap water with your morning cappuccino or caffe al banco – or at least won’t turn you down if you ask – it’s taboo to ask in a restaurant.
Most mid-to-high-end establishments should serve you mineral water in a glass bottle rather than a plastic one, though it’s not a given.
While they’re often sealed, it’s also not uncommon for the water to arrive in a swing-top bottle or carafe, making you wonder if you are in fact paying several euros for something that’s come straight from the kitchen sink.
A determination not to be scammed in this way is what turned me from a diehard hater of carbonated water to a convert (in Lazio you can ask for acqua leggermente frizzante or ‘lightly fizzy water’ – often shortened to leggermente – which is a good gateway water).
It’s one of those aspects of Italian culture I’ve adjusted to over time. But visitors and newcomers might reasonably ask why Italy is so intent on foisting bottled water on people who don’t want it.
One possible answer is a deep-seated national appreciation for tradition and etiquette: a restaurant is a place of refinement, where you should expect to pay (and be seen paying) for the very best.
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Another – and this is the Supreme Court’s official reasoning – is that a restaurant might want to protect its patrons from “the possibility of problems related to mains water”.
Concerns over water safety is the reason 30 percent of Italians gave in a 2024 survey for their preference for bottled water (with four in ten saying they don’t ‘trust’ tap water), despite the fact that the quality of its mains water is among the highest in Europe.
The final reason is money.
In 2024, Italian food publication Cibo Today interviewed several cafe owners who all admitted to the same thing: bottled water offered by far the highest returns of any of their products.
“Water must be paid for, because it provides margins that help the business stay afloat”, said Francesco Sanapo, the owner of the Ditta Artiginale cafe mini-chain.
“If I could sell my coffee and my products at the prices they sell for in London or Copenhagen, not only would I give you free water, but also a big hug”, added Luca Scanni of Pavè in Milan.
Financial troubles might not be unique to Italian restaurants and cafes, but Italy is particularly concerned with protecting its existing industries.
It’s why you can’t get a standard Uber in Italian cities or buy basic painkillers and antihistamines from the supermarket, instead having to pay a pharmacist a thousand-percent mark up for the exact same drug.
READ ALSO: Why are medicines so expensive in Italy?
If you’re from a country that has something closer to a free-market economy, it can be frustrating to have those decisions made for you. I would like not to have to ask my friends and family to traffic large quantities of hayfever pills in their hand luggage every time they visit.
But reading the Cibo Today article, I felt sympathy for the cafe owners. A five-star resort in the Dolomites isn’t likely to live or die based on its ability to sell bottled water, but a Rome trattoria might.
Regardless of how anyone feels about it, the Court’s ruling means bottled water in Italy’s restaurants is – for now – here to stay.
The only question that remains is the one you’ll be asked the next time you sit down at a restaurant in Italy: acqua naturale or gassata?
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