“A glass of Vermentino, and your children’s menu please.” I am sitting alone at the bar of Cafe Murano in Covent Garden, so you may not be surprised to learn that the waiter returned a puzzled expression. But the service here is almost forcefully obliging. Maybe something in my tone implied it was an emergency – a woman starts running around in search. “Madame!” She brisks past anxiously for the third time. “Your children’s menu is coming.”
It arrives – chicken Milanese, arancini, rigatoni and meatballs. That all seems pleasingly advanced for a six-year-old. “Warning! Not suitable for children under 36 months due to small parts – choking hazard,” it says along the bottom. This is confusing to me, as it is A4-sized – the sort of thing a basking shark might choke on, but surely no human infant? In fact, of all the potential choking hazards in my line of sight – the lamb neck ragu with gnocchi on my neighbour’s plate, the peas in the vegetable stew on my other side – this large sheet of paper does not seem a serious concern.
Nevertheless, I turn it over, take out my pen and attempt the maze on the back. That’s also advanced: I hit three dead ends and it took me two minutes and eight seconds. More games: “How many oranges can you count on both sides of this activity sheet?” (14). My performance in the arithmetic challenge (“Pasta Trail”) was exemplary (23 seconds and only one mistake). I stopped short of asking the hurried waiter for colouring pencils.
Children belong in restaurants the same way that dogs belong in pubs: absolutely welcome so long as neither feral nor rabid, and in a strictly literal sense. But there are plenty of misers out there prepared to argue otherwise: “I am not here to enjoy other people’s children,” goes one of them in the Guardian; “Why do parents insist on taking their undisciplined kids to restaurants?” another kicks off on Quora. And sure, I get it – I like screaming two-year-olds just as much as I like receiving correspondence from HMRC. But where else is a two-year-old supposed to learn how to behave in public, if not in public?
So let them in, I say, in the spirit of near-inhuman magnanimity. I am concerned, however, with what we feed them once we do. Because no one learns to eat well by being fed badly: plain pasta, chicken nuggets, oven chips and everything else on the Fussy Eater Greatest Hits album. No, the children’s menu should afford the diner dignity, scope for curiosity, a sense of occasion, and a maze that is slightly easier than the one Cafe Murano provided.
It is important, first because the youthful aversion to challenging food most likely comes from a defunct biological inheritance – children are vulnerable to bitter toxins, so the palate says stay away from broccoli. This unfortunately is a mechanism that human infants share with rats, and I think any steps we can take to further distance ourselves evolutionarily from rats is worthwhile.
Second, eating well is a learned skill. A healthy relationship with food can be life-altering; nutrition (snooze) is probably, at the end of the day, really quite important. Just as we do not neglect our little ones’ numeracy and literacy capacities, we should not neglect their culinary learning either.
Yes, sure. Whatever. More serious than any of that is the simple fact that food is fun, and what a shame it would be to deny that lesson to all the Lilys and Felixs and Margots out there. They understand this at Per Se in New York: gougères and white-sturgeon caviar for the five-year-olds. At Apricity in London, children are fed venison terrine and will leave with a greater appreciation for the subtle gaminess of hogget compared to lamb. Restaurants are places for children to be treated like adults. So take them, and be firm: No! You cannot have dessert until you finish your seaweed custard and grilled brassicas.
In the spirit of journalistic integrity, I must disclose that I ultimately ordered from the adult menu (sage butter pasta), because I am 30 and I do not believe in fleecing already-beleaguered restaurants. This did not stop the Italian bartender addressing me as “bambina!”.
[Further reading: Who’s afraid of Olly Robbins?]
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This article appears in the 22 Apr 2026 issue of the New Statesman, All alone
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