Anyone who eats out with children knows the drill: the kids’ menu that seems to have absolutely nothing to do with what is being cooked in the very same kitchen. After years of travelling as a family, I’ve started to wonder why food is one of those areas where we’re so quick to decide what children supposedly like. Maybe they don’t need a culinary world of their own. Maybe they just need the chance to discover ours with us.
Recently, we were sitting in a small restaurant in Larnaca. White tablecloths, candlelight, a menu that read like a love letter to Cypriot cuisine. My husband and I were delighted.
Then the kids’ menu arrived.
A laminated sheet with clipart graphics. And on it, as so often, the usual suspects: fries, spaghetti with tomato sauce, something breaded.
Nothing to do with Cyprus. Nothing to do with the food on the main menu. Nothing to do with what was being cooked ten metres away.
And once again, I found myself wondering: why?
Why does all that care and attention so often stop the moment we get to the kids’ menu? Why serve an eight-year-old fries when there’s lamb kleftiko coming out of the oven next door? As if good food were something you had to grow into.
I’m a mother of four. We’ve been travelling the world as a family since 2017, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned along the way, it’s this: children can eat. Really eat.
They can taste. They can enjoy. They can be surprised. If we give them the chance.
My eldest son discovered his love of truffles in an upscale restaurant in Portugal. There was no kids’ menu and no special treatment. He ordered from the regular menu like everyone else, tried the food, and at some point his eyes lit up.
Truffles.
He was maybe ten.
Of course, there are other evenings too. The ones where one of my children takes two bites of something from a Michelin-starred kitchen, pushes the plate away and says, completely unimpressed: I don’t like it.
No diplomatic smile. No polite excuse. Just: no.
A chef once told me that children are the most honest critics because they don’t sugar-coat their opinions. He was right. Children don’t care about the concept, the reputation of the restaurant or the price of the tasting menu.
They care whether it tastes good.
And maybe that should challenge us rather than scare us off.
When we offer children nothing but fries or pasta, we hide so much of what food can be from them: flavour, curiosity, culture and sometimes simply the joy of discovering something unexpected.
I don’t mean that in a finger-wagging way. For me, good food is part of a good life, and it’s also one of the most direct ways into another culture. When we travel, we discover a country through its food too. Through its spices, its textures, the way people cook and the way they sit down together to eat.
Our children are part of that. Not as spectators, but as participants.
And yet the classic kids’ menu often does the exact opposite. It separates children from everyone else at the table. It says: here’s something simple. Something safe. Something you already know.
In doing so, it doesn’t just take away a child’s chance to discover something new. Restaurants also miss the chance to introduce younger guests to what they actually do best.
This becomes even more obvious in fine dining, where children still aren’t considered natural guests everywhere.
But they don’t have to understand every dish. They certainly don’t have to like every dish. They just need the opportunity to take part.
And if a child pushes the plate away after two bites and ends up eating a slice of bread at home later, that’s fine.
That’s our risk as parents, not the restaurant’s.
Which brings me to the question at the heart of all this: do we actually take children seriously as guests?
Not as little adults. Not as a target group that needs to be educated. Just as people with their own tastes, their own curiosity and the same right to well-made food as everyone else.
“If you cook with care and ambition, why should that stop when you’re cooking for children?”
So what could we do instead?
Small portions from the regular menu. One or two dishes that are a little more approachable, but still properly cooked. Half a portion of risotto, perhaps. A small plate with three different meze to try.
Nothing that requires a kitchen to reinvent itself.
Just enough to say: you belong at this table too.
Of course, culinary curiosity doesn’t begin in a restaurant. We parents play a role in what feels familiar and what our children are willing to try in the first place.
But children need opportunities, not pressure.
Not every dinner has to become a lesson in food education. Sometimes all it takes is: try it. And if you don’t like it, that’s fine too.
In many food cultures, it’s completely normal for children to eat as part of the shared meal, whether that means smaller portions or several dishes placed in the middle of the table. They don’t automatically get different food. They simply eat with everyone else.
And perhaps that’s the more interesting idea.
Not getting rid of kids’ menus because children should eat everything.
Rethinking them because children might discover more.
If I could ask restaurants for one thing, it would be this: fewer laminated menus with clipart graphics and a little more faith in children’s taste.
Fresh ingredients. Good cooking. The chance to discover something that was unfamiliar yesterday.
My son eats truffles today.
Not because we taught him to.
But because, at some point, someone gave him the chance to try them.
