Since we bought ourselves a decent lightweight buggy last month we’ve been eating out and drinking coffee in cafés a lot more often.
However, this increased experience of bringing our ten month old daughter to restaurants has brought some interesting failings to light when restaurants try, or don’t try, to cater to customers with babies.
Here are some highlights from the last few weeks alone:
Chapters Restaurant, Blackheath, London: this restaurant was very welcoming to us with our baby and buggy (unsurprising when you see how many buggies are being pushed around the ‘Heath every weekend). There was a high chair produced without any fuss within a few seconds of our arrival. In addition to that the waitress brought us a kids menu! I was tempted to pass it back to her and explain my baby would be eating from the full menu.
Jamie’s Italian, Canary Wharf – newly opened in Canary Wharf, friendly welcoming staff and again a high chair provided with no fuss whatsoever. Not only that, they brought our baby pictures to colour in, a glass with crayons in it!
Strada, More London, nr London Bridge – while the previous two were funny, this was more frustrating. We were given a highchair with a broken strap (though to be fair this was replaced as soon as we asked). We had a frozen dinner for our baby so we asked for it to be zapped in the microwave, and were told that it couldn’t be done for health and safety reasons! Instead they offered us some boiling water – after about three bowls of water my daughter was given a very cold meal, but thankfully she ate it.
We’ve had plenty of positive experiences of course – Wahaca in Covent Garden is very welcoming to babies, and has those wonderful trendy and expensive high chairs. It’s always great to find baby friendly restaurants in Covent Garden – and this restaurant is one of our favourite eateries.
Restaurants are clearly very aware of buggies and babies, and very good at providing high chairs. It’s a good start. What’s needed next is some sensitivity to parents’ other needs – if mother is breastfeeding don’t put us by the door on a cold October night, let us heat up food (promise we won’t scald our own child) and please don’t give a small baby crayons!
