In my very first post on this blog, I cited in passing a New York Times article in which chef Nicola Mazovilla decried the institution of the restaurant children’s menu as “the death of civilization.” According to Mazovilla (who will happily offer kids smaller portions of his regular menu items at a discount), food shouldn’t be dumbed down for children. He asks, “If you don’t ask your children to try things, how will they ever know what they’re capable of?”
I’d mentioned the article as part of a larger discussion of whether we adults have abdicated too much power to children when we create school lunch menus that are entirely comprised of “kid food” like pizza, burgers, chicken nuggets, mac-n-cheese and the rest. To me, children’s menus (which typically offer the same types of items) are symptomatic of the this same problem. Since when do kids get to dictate the menu? And how are kids going to learn to eat anything else if Kid Food is all they’re ever offered, both in school and out?
On the other hand, when my children were younger, we certainly often took advantage of the “safe” — and cheaper — options offered on a children’s menu (although never in the ethnic restaurants we commonly frequent). It’s just easier all around: the portions are guaranteed to be kid-sized, you don’t have to find an entree that both the child and an adult (or two siblings) will willingly split, and you know the Kid Food will be happily eaten. Other parents obviously like these benefits, too — according to the Times article, another New York restaurant nearly faced a boycott when it opened without a children’s menu.
I suppose the question doesn’t have to be either/or. Like chef Mazovilla, restaurants could still offer cheaper and smaller entrees for kids without resorting to the usual array of Kid Food. And I’ve noticed that the Jason’s Deli chain, although still offering hot dogs, mac-n-cheese and the rest, has a least improved its children’s menu (scroll down to locate it) by offering such sides as apple slices, carrot sticks and fresh fruit, and more healthful entrees like a kid’s salad bar and a turkey sandwich in a whole wheat wrap.
So, readers, what do you think? Are children’s menus an absolute necessity for families dining out or are they the end of civilization? Take a second and answer The Lunch Tray’s first ever reader poll!
NotCinderell says
I don’t have a problem with kids’ menus, but I’m alarmed at how they’ve changed. When I was of the age to eat from kids’ menus (in the ’80s) they contained a lot more than just pizza and chicken fingers. These days, even in places where they might make their own fried chicken for grownups, there’ll be breaded chicken nuggets made with mechanically separated meat in freezer bags for the picky children. And what’s with restaurants serving children Kraft Mac & Cheese??? Are there really children out there who will eat nothing but the stuff from a box?
At the two restaurants we frequent where we use the children’s menu (as opposed to just giving the kids food off of our plates), at one we order mac & cheese (made in-house, not Kraft) with a side of canned mandarin oranges, and at the other one we order cheese ravioli with marinara sauce. The last time we were at the latter restaurant, they had their breakfast/lunch buffet up, and they let me snag a small plate of fruit salad for the kids for an extra dollar.
Karen says
We ate at a newish restaurant this weekend where the adult menu bored me to death but the kids’ menu was really interesting. They had little kids and bigger kids. They had sides like caesar salad and roasted asparagus. There was grilled fish!
One daughter had the salmon (swapped the menu’s mashed potatoes for string fries, unfortunately) and the other had (sigh) grilled cheese and fries. But the grilled cheese girl also had a caesar, so somehow I feel ok about it all.