If you opened a sealed can of water from the 1950s and drank it, what would happen? Would you die? Only one way to find out.

A fancy shmancy restaurant located inside a Los Angeles County museum is taking pretension as art to its illogical conclusion by introducing what it calls "LA's most extensive Water Menu."

If you're a hip and trendsetting young urban affluencer like me, you can hardly count how many times you've purchased a new brand of bottled water, only to be disappointed with its lack of that... certain something. "I dunno, this just takes like water," you grumble, tossing the disposable plastic bottle onto the mountainous pile of similar empty plastic bottles that have built up in your tastefully decorated apartment, a testament to your restless search for a bottled water brand that speaks to your lifestyle. I am here to tell you that there is finally hope: a bottled water that comes from Brooklyn.

Fiji Water announced it's shutting down operations in Fiji after the government imposed a harsh new tax on water bottling and had a Fiji Water executive deported. Where on earth will they ever find more water for their square bottles?

Soon you'll be able to pay $10 (or more) for a bottle of Glace Rare Iceberg Water taken straight from an iceberg in Greenland. What a deal! The producer says "It is so tasteless that it actually creates a taste."

Concord, Mass., home of juice company Welch's, has banned the sale of bottled water starting in 2011. An effort to save the so-called "environment," or a bow to pressure from the powerful grape-juice lobby? We report—you decide. [Fox]

Why did we all get together and agree to stop drinking water? Who knows, really, but we must have at some point because sales of bottled water have been falling fast over the past few months. Which explains why beverage companies are now in the process of coming up with all sorts of crazy new drinks to make up the difference.

• Jeffrey Chodorow says he plans to turn his failed steakhouse, Center Cut, into a seafood shack-style spot called Ed's Chowder House. Ed Brown, the chef and owner of Eighty One, will be his partner in the venture. [NYT]
• Like father, like son, apparently: The new chef at Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Perry Street is JGV's eldest son, Cedric Vongerichten. [TFB]
• John Fraser says he's planning to expand his UWS eatery, Dovetail. [VV]
• Butchers are the new food world rock stars, in case you haven't heard. [ABC]
• Bed-Stuy gets its first speakeasy, SarahJames, this weekend. [GS]
• The guy who owns most of the Burger Kings in Brooklyn and Queens has gone bankrupt, just in case you happen to be interested in that tidbit. [Crain's]
• Make of this what you will: Sales of bottled water have been going down while at the same time whiskey sales have been on the rise.

• More than 200 places will be taking part in New York Restaurant Week, which kicks off on Sunday. Here's a list of some of the notable newcomers. [Zagat]
• The outdoor courtyard at Locanda Verde has opened. [GS]
• A rendering of what the "sophisticated cocktail lounge" on the ground floor of the Empire State building will look like when it eventually opens. [Eater]
• Scandal! "Law enforcement officials are investigating several restaurants in the Hamptons where cheaper booze is poured into top-shelf brand bottles and served to clueless customers who can't taste the difference. [P6]
• A Q&A with Klaus Ortlieb of Table 8 and the Cooper Square Hotel. [Eater]
• Bottled water may be worse for you than tap water. Who knew? [Reuters]
• Rachael Ray had minor surgery to remove a benign cyst from her vocal cords. The good news/bad news, depending on what you happen to think of her: She'll be able to speak again in about a week or so. [People]

A "luxury fair" designed to appeal to the world's richest people took place in Sardinia this past weekend. But if you were thinking the economic downturn would have put a damper on things, well, think again. Thirty bottles of "Exousia Gold Luxury Water," which is describede as a "gold petal designer label mineral water" and costs $2,800 a pop, were sold over the course of two evenings. And the water still isn't good enough to drink as is, apparently. "A spokeswoman for Exousia said sales were mainly to Russians, who 'like to use it to make tea.'" [DJ/Wealth Bulletin]

Bottled water is a bit like smoking: deep down, we all knew there was something wrong with it from day one. Environmentalism has been a widespread subject in our public consciousness for more than 30 years now. Did anyone really believe that getting our water out of 16-ounce plastic bottles would be an efficient long-term solution for humanity? Despite that, the bottled water industry has done an admirable job using sly marketing magic to make us all feel like chemical-ridden cheapskates for drinking out of the tap. And a new book called Bottlemania breaks down the corporate spin techniques in a straightforward way that already has me drinking exclusively out of the toilet: