Most parents discover fairly early on that if they want to meet in a cafe with friends and have any hope of conversation (one that spans more than 10 seconds), then a distraction for the children in the form of a book/toy is imperative. It allows at least some semblance of communication between the adults whilst in the company of young children — where you can form a full sentence… in one go!!
Many cafes in Melbourne answer this need, providing crayons and butcher paper to occupy the kids. And that certainly helps! But Family Life Home & Café in Grattan Street, Prahran goes one step further. Not only is it a divine Balinese inspired space, incorporating a cafe and boutique, but it has a gorgeous imaginative play area for the children.
So… whilst you leisurely sip your cappuccino on a comfy couch, chat to friends, read the newspaper (without being interrupted every. single. sentence) and shop for hand-made toys, eco homewares, exotic recycled furniture and some great kidswear — the children are happily playing nearby in the enchanted forest or putting on a show in the gazebo! Happiness all around!
If you are visiting, be sure to check out the kidswear. Not only do they carry some great Aussie designers like Mill&Mia, Sudo and Jellyfish but they also carry a more obscure Balinese designer called Paul Ropp. His distinctive and vibrant pieces are truly amazing!
Family Life will also throw a fantastic kids birthday party, with every little detail taken care of!
Nestled in a bend of the Yarra River, amongst the river red gum and paperbark trees (a very typical Australian setting!) is the Collingwood Children’s Farm…. a little slice of country life right in the heart of Melbourne, only 4 kilometres from the CBD. It’s a magical place for city children (and adults) and an absolute favorite with family and friends.
Here, children can get up close and personal with all the typical farmyard animals and immerse themselves in farm chores. They can get their hands dirty milking the cows, bottle feeding the lambs, waddling with the ducks, patting the rabbits, feeding grass to the horses and all the while marvel at the sight and smell of the pigs. They can also look for eggs — a great way to teach them that eggs and milk don’t come out of cartons (as I am lead to believe some ‘other’ children think is the case… not mine, of course! )
And, after all that exhausting animal frolicking, if you haven’t brought your own picnic, there is the delicious Farm Cafe where you can enjoy a decent coffee made with Eureka beans and a hearty farmer’s breakfast or lunch, always reliably good.
Needless to say, this is truly a hidden oasis for us Melbourne city dwellers. Every second Saturday of the month the farm hosts a wonderful farmers’ market selling fresh produce from the farm and from dozens of other Victorian producers. I am always gutted when I miss this. And despite a little mishap with an enthusiastic cow I was attempting to milk several months ago (I won’t divulge but it didn’t end so well for me), it really is one of my favorite places to take my children. We always have a ball.
ps. Should you happen to be a germaphobe like me, don’t forget this!
There has been a revolution in the Parisien café scene! Les 400 Coups, a family café, has recently opened its doors! When I heard about this phenomenon I just had to pack up my kids, jump on the metro and experience this place in person. Here in Paris, cafés with play areas are virtually nonexistent — my kids have gotten used to sitting at a table and amusing themselves with a silver spoon and a sugar packet; though after a while they do get a wee bit bored.
So off we went to Les 400 Coups and it was fantastic. The food might not be haute cuisine but the coffee was great and the moment we got to the café, the kids started playing in the play area and I did not hear from them for a good hour. And for you moms who cannot be separated from your laptop there is even wifi.
I think I might be spending many a wintery afternoon at Les 400 Coups. It is actually the perfect place for me to take my kids, along with my laptop, to write up some posts while sipping a good coffee.
The café is a bit off the beaten track in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, but it is quite easy to reach via metro!
As mentioned in an earlier post, I am not a huge fan of eating out with young kids. It’s not good for the digestion. But then again, there is Pop Burger.
This unassuming and very hip burger joint in the trendy Meatpacking district is actually one of my favorite super duper secret places to grab a special lunch with the girls. The burgers are delicious, and they come in sets of two which are perfect for teeny hands. They also have a nice selection of healthier items like a salad or an excellent chicken burger which pair nicely with a thick classic milkshake and crispy fries.
Pop Burger is actually a popular late night club /hangout for the young and fabulous, but during the day they play upbeat ’80s and ’90s classics and my girls love to dance and flail around the place like Beyonce. Warning: the music is loud! So don’t send them with the grandparents because they will totally hate your guts but I assure you, if you were born in the ’70s or ’80s you will love it. I have caught myself singing out loud and seriously, who would have guessed I know all of the words to “Rhythm Nation.” I have vetted this place many times and always leave happy. The only downside is that they have the most terrible flimsy cheap napkins known to man – bring a packet of wipes – it does get messy.
I really try to avoid taking my twins out to eat. It is nothing short of torture for me. Seriously….it’s like the minute they see that dilapidated cup of crayons and sad coloring placemat coming at them they start to make a scene. Chelsea Market, on the other hand, is now a destination of mine to eat with the girls on sunny days with the stroller in tow. I can only describe it as an underground culinary fantasy land and one where I am at complete ease dining with two three-year-olds. There’s a huge selection of delicious gourmet places to eat – all in a cool and low key setting. Kids can choose from homeade soup, sandwhiches and pasta and then watch fresh bread being baked, visit a fish market and toss coins into an indoor waterfall. Even better are the places to grab dessert – Eleni’s cookies, Sarabeths and Fat Witch Brownies. On the weekends they oftentimes have musical performances for kids so check the schedule and make a morning of it. And while the weather is still nice grab a coffee and check out the new and ultra-swank Highline where you can sit and watch a parade of New York’s hipsters saunter by.
Italians, or possibly just the people from Milan, have come up with their own version of brunch. In the last 10 years many restaurants have specialised in a particular Sunday lunch, that goes by the name of brunch.
It’s not too dissimilar from what the international crowd believes brunch should be, but it has its own peculiarities. First of all it happens at lunch time, not in between breakfast and lunch. The experience normally involves a big buffet table that offers food in a very wide range. You’ll find lasagna, pasta and risotto next to meatballs and sausages. All sorts of grain salads next to grilled vegetables. But also scrambled and hard boiled eggs, brownies, pancakes, fruit, yogurt and cereals. So it’s really hard not to find something everybody likes.
That’s why it has become a favourite family event — informal, quick and with lots of choice for the fussy children.
Today we tried the play-brunch at the San Vittore restaurant, named from the prison it faces (in the center of Milan!). The place is light and modern and you get to sit either at normal tables or on small couches in front of coffee tables. It may sound weird but it actually works fine if you have very small children! We were welcomed with a tasty mimosa, the buffet had all of the brunch staples and included in the fixed price menu we were offered eggs (any style) and coffee. Not a gourmet meal, but definitely nice. What makes this place stand out is the entertainment for the children. Two girls went around the tables and joked with the children and built them swords and animals with balloon tubes. When most of the children were done eating they all ventured on the terrace and did some games and a magic show in which children could participate.
That gave us some time to drink our coffee and have some quiet adult conversation. Not bad after all!
After I’d been living on Capitol Hill a while, I noticed this fun looking new restaurant, Goodstuff Eatery, and was amused by the name….and then I read about it in all the local papers– it is run by a local celeb chef, Spike Mendelsohn [famous from Top Chef, one of my fave reality shows], and made even more famous when Michelle Obama decided to eat there one night with friends. So we took the kids, ordered up some gourmet burgers and super rich milkshakes and had an all-American meal. Yum. Specialties include burgers with applewood bacon and cripsy Vidalia onion, a free-range turkey burger, and handspun shakes with flavors like toasted marshmallow and very berry. Just writing about this is making me think we might have to venture back to our old ‘hood to have another meal there sometime soon….303 Pennsylvania Ave, SE, Washington, DC.
Michela and I are often asked about family-friendly restaurants in our respective cities. Try as we might, we are hard pressed to come up with good suggestions. There is a huge North/South divide in Europe regarding the obvious signs of child friendliness in restaurants.
In Northern Europe you will more often than not be offered a highchair when you enter a restaurant with your kids. Often you find changing tables in the bathrooms and kids menus, and many places even have special toys they bring out. In Southern Europe it is rare to find this kind of service, BUT this does not mean that children are not welcome. In fact, they are almost always welcome, but are expected to fit around the adults.
As I now have two little ones with me constantly, I have been surprised by how many restaurants here in France are more than willing to put together a child portion of simple food, though there is almost never a specific child menu; you just have to ask. There may be no toys, but everyone from the cook to the other customers will comment on how beautiful your child is, which my 3-year-old personally finds hugely entertaining, (she is definitely not going to develop an inferiority complex).
One of our favourite places in Paris, the Café de l’Industrie close to Bastille is a perfect example. On the surface it looks like a lot of the establishments in the area. It is nicely decorated, has a great menu and lots of people hanging out drinking coffees and smoking cigarettes and philosophizing about life. If you turn up with a brood of youngsters though, they will make sure you get a comfortable table and offer the little ones pasta or sausages and mash as half portions. The young and beautiful waitresses find the spectacle of small children covering themselves in potatoes hugely entertaining. (So would I by the way, if I did not have to try and wash dried up mashed potatoes out of my daughters hair…)
You will be surprised by how much kids are actually accepted in restaurants if you are ever holidaying in France and if someone makes a fuss, just throw your arms up in the air and gesticulate wildly and walk out, just as the locals would do!
Having lived in Paris for 7 years, I got used to having croissants for breakfast– weekends only, really, as who can eat them every day without gaining a ton of weight? Anyway, that was one of the big things our family missed when we moved to DC — especially my 4-year-old! So I was thrilled to (re)discover Patisserie Poupon, in upper Georgetown. An authentic French bakery — you can have a number of French baked goods, pastries, etc., or go for a little brioche sandwich, a lovely salad nicoise, all chased down by a real espresso. There is even a tiny, quaint terrace tucked in the back, and if one concentrates really hard, you can pretend you are in Paris, all for the price of a croissant and cafe creme.
Patisserie Poupon
1645 Wisconsin Ave NW, Washington, DC.
Telephone: 202-342-3248
I have been watching……waiting…..okay, technically “stalking” out this place for weeks now and as of last Monday the doors to paradise have finally flung wide open. Moomah – which dubs itself a “creative arts café” is the brainchild of Tracey Stewart, a Tribeca mother who took a delightful detour from the over-stimulating child play spaces that have been cropping up around the city to create a community space where adults would feel just as much at home as their kids. One part adult café, one part earth-conscious art/exploration space for kids – Moomah offers something for all of the senses and serves as a place where the adults don’t have to just sit awkwardly on the sidelines. From big tables for impromptu art projects to cozy couches where you can grab a light meal and read a book, the rustic-chic space offers cool activities for families to do together.
One of the main draws is a fantastic, high concept, interactive light forest where the kids can explore while you drink a cup of coffee and read the paper nearby. They have also recently launched a “High Tea” where for $10 kids can dress up in costumes and eat finger sandwiches. In addition to delicious coffee, Moomah offers daily baked treats from Balthazar bakery and a nicely edited selection of books, clothing and toys.
It’s always such a joy to go somewhere without people getting upset that your kid is wandering around touching things and even better to go to a place where they actually encourage that to happen!
Courtney and her family were over in Paris visiting from London and we wandered around the North Marais, doing a bit of shopping, people watching and coffee drinking. It really reminded me about how much I love this little area. I want to write a thousand and one posts on all the lovely little places you can find around here…
I cannot believe I have not written a post about the Marché des Enfants Rouge yet. It is one of the oldest markets of Paris, founded in 1647 and has been converted into a fabulous market/food hall.
Food from all over the world is available… from Morocco, the Caribbean and Japan and it all gets consumed on big communal tables outside the food stalls. There is also a great organic fruit and vegetable stall and a beautiful flower stall.
It has a great atmosphere and is the perfect place to take kids as it is very lively, so a couple of extra noisy little people fit in perfectly….
The food can also be taken away and there is a great little park called the Square du Temple just down the road if you need to give your kids a bit of time off from culture and shopping!
Marché des Enfants Rouge
39 Rue de Bretagne
Paris 75003
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 8.30 – 13.00 and 16.00 to 19.30
Friday, Saturday 8.30 – 13.00 and 16.00 to 20.00
Sunday 8.30 -14.00
The Eastern Market, in DC’s Southeast quadrant, has always been one of my favorite weekend stops, long before I lived in the neighborhood. The market itself is DC’s oldest food market, dating to 1873, housed in an old brick hall. (The hall suffered from a big fire a few years back, and the market is in a temporary shelter across the street, with the old/refurbished shelter set to re-open soon.) Just like a European market, you can come here to visit your neighborhood butcher, the florist, the cheese monger, the produce man, etc. People from all over the city also flock to Market Lunch, for greasy spoon southern-influenced breakfast and lunch. The bluebucks (blueberry buckwheat pancakes) are to die for! But be sure to get there early, as the lines can be lengthy…. Have Dad stand in line while you take the kids to explore all the other merchants nearby in the hall. After lunch? Take a stroll through the flea market next door (Saturday and Sunday only) to check out furniture and other treasures, and walk the whole block of 7th street — tents are set up all along the street with vendors and artisans selling jewelry, paintings, and all sorts of cool things. And be sure to look for the cafe with the bubble-blowing machine outside — that in itself inspires my 4-year-old to walk the 5 blocks to the market!
I had a coffee with the lovely Kirby from Petite Alma this morning in one of my favourite cafés and I suddenly realised that I have never written a post about it! It is called Le Loir dans la Théière on 3 rue des Rosiers in the Marais (Tel : 01 42 72 90 61).
We go there with friends and family for the fabulous brunch on the weekends (get there early, or risk waiting in a huge queue), we also go for lunch and we especially go there to have a big piece of cake in the afternoons. The lemon pie has a meringue crust that is at least 10 centimetres high! I have had friends refuse to leave town before having a slice of this pie! I am also very partial to their Tarte Tatin — it’s really incredible.
The thing I like almost as much as the food is the atmosphere and decor; it hasn’t changed a bit in all the years the café has been around. You will find mismatched, big leather armchairs and old tables. Laptops are not allowed, and even when there is a huge queue snaking out of the café onto the road, every customer is allowed to take as much time as he needs.
There is no special kid-friendly equipment but the staff are really nice and try to accommodate you as much as possible, though it is best to avoid turning up with a big pushchair during the peak hours.
Le Pain Quotidien now has branches in 15 different countries and long may it continue expanding.
We are loyal customers at our nearest branch in the Marais. There are several reasons for our frequent visits: the food is healthy, fresh and simple and my whole family, young and old, loves going there. They serve great grilled sandwiches and salads, which are a little bit different from the usual bistro fair.
But the great food is not my main reason for recommending the Pain Quotidien. It is one of the rare places you can find a changing table in the toilets… and high chairs! I know that for most countries this is so normal it is not worth mentioning, but in Paris this a phenomenon!
So to paraphrase: it’s a cafe that serves great food and is child friendly. It doesn’t have much going against it, does it?
I must say that even though I love cooking (I just wish I had more time for it), I possibly love eating out in restaurants even more (I just wish I had more money for it). Last weekend our in-laws came to visit us in Amsterdam and after we treated our children to some indoor playtime at Tun-Fun, we spontaneously decided to go for a late and lazy Dim Sum lunch. It was very nice. We had four children with us, ages 2 to 11, and they kept themselves busy enough with eating, checking out the fish in the aquarium, watching Chinese television and drawing on the paper table-cloths. There were four grown-ups as well, and they loved the variety of steamed, fried and roasted seafood, beef, chicken, pork and vegetarian dishes that kept filling our table.
It’s so nice to sit around a table, chat, eat, drink tea and turn the Lazy Susan around for yet another delicious dish. No wonder the literal meaning of Dim Sum is ‘to touch the heart’!
I find the staff at Chinese restaurants to be very tolerant and sweet toward children, and Dim Sum lunch is definitely something you should try with your children, if you haven’t done so already.
A very good Dim Sum restaurant here in Amsterdam is Oriental City (Dim Sum is served daily from 11.30 to 17.00).
Now that my little one is progressing quickly to finger food, it won’t be long until he can start eating out with us. Already we take him down to the local cafés but I haven’t really given much thought to whether the food on the menu is suitable for him. Until now…
Well, luckily I’ve found a great little book: Eating Out With Kids by Julie Chatto reviews places all over Sydney where you can dine with children. And I love that she has kids review each place too with comments such as: “I love it here, my mummy’s friend lives in North Sydney, so we come here with her and have lunch sometimes. I can run around outside without getting into trouble. I like the sandstone building – it reminds me of being in church, only I can be loud here.”
Il Rosa al Caminetto is the restaurant of a 4 star hotel behind the Duomo, in the very centre of Milan. Thanks to Marcello Forti, a young entrepreneur and new dad, the restaurant has taken a turn and become quite family friendly.
First of all, children under 8 eat free on any day, lunch or dinner. Then they have a big amount of crayons, markers and colouring books which they will happily bring to the young customers to keep busy while waiting for their meals…or while waiting for their parents to eat their own (a rare thing to find in Milan!).
We were there on a Sunday lunch when they serve an Italian version of brunch. There was a starter buffet with cheese, cold cuts, salads, quiche and grilled vegetables. This was followed by an entree and a main course, and we finished the lunch with a trip to the dessert trolley!
The Sunday brunch is meant to be a family affair so on these occasions some toys are brought out — there were cars, a doll house and a play kitchen with pots and pans.
The décor is not too modern I’m afraid but the new Louis Ghost chairs by Philippe Starck have made the room look definitely less stuffy, and the location cannot be beaten: totally in the middle of the tourist and shopping attractions of Milan!
My favourite pizza place in Paris goes by the original name of Pink Flamingo. The first outpost was out by the Canal St Martin, but a new venue has just opened, in the middle of the Marais. Why do I like it so much? The pizzas are great — the Pink Flamingo crew has decided not to recreate Italian classics badly, but to successfully take pizza to a new level. Our two favourites are the ‘Basquiat’ which is covered in blue cheese and figs and the ‘Aphrodite’, a houmous and aubergine pizza. (At the moment there is even a Hawaian inspired ‘Obama’ pizza…)
Not only are the pizzas great but there is something else that makes the “Pink Flamingo” our family’s favourite: Their Pink-Nik service! You order the pizzas in the restaurant. You are then given a helium-filled pink balloon and tell them in which park in the area you are going to be. Fifteen minutes later a pizza delivery guy will come and find you. The area has lots of little parks with playgrounds so your kids can have lots of fun while you kick back and relax. Granted, it is a bit cold for this at the moment, but spring is just around the corner…. The restaurants are really cute too, in a retro-kitsch kind of way!
Twenty years ago London had a reputation for having bad food (let’s be honest, ‘bangers and mash’ are not the most innovative of foods). Now however, thanks to an influx of new British chefs, even traditional English food can be tasty. But, what truly makes London’s food so interesting in my opinion, is the growing number of international restaurants in this city. You can now find some of the world’s best French, Italian, Spanish, Indian, Middle Eastern and Chinese restaurants across London. (My only complaint is the lack of good Mexican restaurants!) Seriously, if you’re craving it chances are you can find it!
Belgo is one such restaurant… where you can walk from the rainy streets of London straight into a Belgian world of traditional (and tasty) mussels, frites and hundreds of Belgium’s best beers.
There’s nothing really fancy about it, but the food is good and the atmosphere is authentic. And what’s more? It’s extremely kid-friendly with loads of highchairs and a kid’s menu which includes a mini pot of mussels and an activity kit. And, want the best news? Kids eat completely free!
A couple of weeks ago my husband and I did something we had not done in a while; we went out for dinner on a Wednesday night. We picked a relatively new restaurant in our neighbourhood on the basis of a couple of reviews we had read (and their website) and we were so pleased with our choice! Pane e Acqua is a very small restaurant opened by chef Francesco Passalacqua when he decided that the experience he had accumulated over the years working in the best Milanese restaurants was enough to start playing solo. The cuisine is delicious — a modern and elaborate take on traditional Piedmont recipes. The people who work with Francesco are all young and friendly; you can tell they enjoy what they do.
What also helped me fall in love with this place is the décor. It’s so not Milanese I’m afraid… it’s so young, understated and cool, not flashy but vibrant and colourful. It is a clever mixture of old, new, rich and poor!
I keep recommending it to everyone I talk to, and I can’t wait to go back!
Most parents discover fairly early on that if they want to meet in a cafe with friends and have any hope of conversation (one that spans more than 10 seconds), then a distraction for the children in the form of a book/toy is imperative. It allows at least some semblance of communication between the adults whilst in the company of young children — where you can form a full sentence… in one go!!
Sara in Melbourne
February 1st, 2010
4 comments
The place is light and modern and you get to sit either at normal tables or on small couches in front of coffee tables. It may sound weird but it actually works fine if you have very small children! We were welcomed with a tasty mimosa, the buffet had all of the brunch staples and included in the fixed price menu we were offered eggs (any style) and coffee. Not a gourmet meal, but definitely nice. What makes this place stand out is the entertainment for the children. Two girls went around the tables and joked with the children and built them swords and animals with balloon tubes. When most of the children were done eating they all ventured on the terrace and did some games and a magic show in which children could participate.
Courtney and her family were over in Paris visiting from London and we wandered around the North Marais, doing a bit of shopping, people watching and coffee drinking. It really reminded me about how much I love this little area. I want to write a thousand and one posts on all the lovely little places you can find around here…
