The Resy Guide to London’s Best Child-Friendly Restaurants

Babies & Toddlers

Photo courtesy of Koya

Children dig umami; Japanese mums know this well. That’s why all the cool kids slurp noodles in dashi and chomp prawn tempura at Koya on Broadway Market, the most child-friendly of this excellent trio of udon noodle shops by dint of its location. The super kawaii kid’s tray includes udon, chopped raw veggies, juice, and learner chopsticks.

Walk-ins only.

Elephant Park newcomer Rarebit is one of those sanity-saving all-day places you can drop in for a cup of strong coffee and a sit-down. The emphasis is on top notch produce, and that extends from snacks and small plates to the children’s menu of O’Shea’s sausage and beans on toast and grilled cheese from Neal’s Yard. Be warned: there’s no going back once a child has tasted a pastry from Flor. Ample space for strollers inside and out.

This Stoke Newington pub, run by the Anchor and Hope team, is big and buzzy enough to absorb the sound of a toddler or two, and spacious enough to accommodate their buggies. As child-friendly as it is, it’s adult-friendly too with a daily-changing menu that might include grilled sardines and green olive tapenade or a fat smoked pork chop with radishes, cucumber, and anchovy. For the kids: penne and tomato sauce; fish fingers, chips, and peas; and an ice cream lolly if they’re good (not really).

Introduce les enfants to the joys of classic French cuisine at Pique-Nique, chef Hervé Durochat’s quirky park pavilion in Bermondsey. There’s a simple menu of rotisserie chicken, potatoes and ice cream pour les petits, but they might be just as interested in maman et papa’s chateaubriand, tarte tatin or fish-shaped sea bass en croute. The leafy Tanner Street Park setting is dreamy, with swings, climbing frame, a slide, and four tennis courts.

Aussie restaurateur, food writer and dad-of-three Bill Granger knows a thing or two about cooking for kids. It shows on the children’s menu served at his five easy-breezy London all-day spots, where scrambled eggs, ricotta hotcakes and grilled cheese sandwiches give way to soy glazed salmon with brown rice and chicken schnitzel and fries. The King’s Cross branch is particularly useful for its proximity to Platform 9¾.

Under 11s

My Neighbours the Dumplings. Credit: David Paw

The kids’ menu at Chick ‘N’ Sours in Covent Garden costs just one pound, that’s one English pound, before 6pm during school holidays. An absolute steal for a plate of naked wings or fried chicken tenders with good crispy fries, just like the adults’, only they have theirs with gochujang mayo, hot disco wing sauce, Szechuan aubergine and other things tiny palates cannot tolerate. A Chick ‘N’ Sours temporary tattoo is the London child’s equivalent of the free lolly at Little Chef. Very cool.

This Victoria Park dumpling house is equidistant from the Pools Playground (the one with the big slides) and the V&A playground (the one with the big swing). While mum and dad look longingly at the extensive range of sakes and Japanese whiskies, the littlies can tuck into dim sum-ish small plates such as siu mai with pork and prawns, steamed prawn har gau and crispy buttermilk chicken wings. The Ghibli-esque logo is cute, and it’s fun to watch the dumplings being made.

At the Hoxton branch of this longstanding Vietnamese restaurant, kids eat free during the month of August. The menu serves scaled-down classics like spring rolls, chicken bánh xèo and beef pho, while elsewhere on the grown-ups’ menu are child-friendly summer rolls, salt and pepper squid, and vermicelli bowls (bún sả).

Looking for somewhere to feed the kids post-matinée or pre-curtain up? Sophie’s Steakhouse in Soho is minutes away from the big Shaftesbury Avenue theatres (for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Les Mis and more). The £10 meal deal covers most children’s staple foods: mac ‘n’ cheese, a burger, fish and chips and ice cream. The £15 theatre menu served 12-7pm includes the likes of chicken Caesar or smoked beef croquettes for bigger appetites.

It’s rare to find a smoking hot restaurant doing something special for kids. At sustainably minded Fallow in St James’ the ‘Mini Fallowers’ menu sets young eaters on the right path early. Corn ribs and lime, dairy cow cheeseburger, fishfingers and smoky mayo, and milk ice cream and hazelnut crumb wouldn’t look out of place in a small plates place in east London. Fallow’s slap bang in central London, near Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square and other valuable Monopoly squares.

Teenagers

Photo courtesy of Burger & Beyond

There comes a time when a Happy Meal® no longer cuts it. That’s when it’s time to graduate to Burger and Beyond, with sites in Soho, Shoreditch and now Borough Yards. This is food to share on TikTok: thick shakes, tater tots with bacon bits and all the sauces, hot Biscoff s’mores and not forgetting the towering burgers dripping melted cheese. They will be talking about the cheeseburger wontons forever. Vegan options available.

Russell Norman’s Trattoria Brutto is a note-perfect recreation of a Florentine restaurant, right down to the warm welcome it extends to bambini. They eat what their parents eat which here might mean deep-fried dough balls with prosciutto and stracchino, slices of bistecca alla fiorentina with roast potatoes, slurpy ribbons of pappardelle con coniglio, and nutty brutti ma buoni cookies with gelato. The flickering candles and red-checked tablecloths have a cross-generational appeal.

Cutlery and decent table manners are optional around the table at Homeslice, where the mahoosive 20” pizzas are designed for just digging in. Each pie feeds two to three, and flavours can be split 50/50. The margherita’s always popular, while the chorizo, corn and coriander or wagyu beef and truffled crème fraîche will find plenty of takers too. Young vegans will like the Shoreditch branch, now fully plant-based.

Choosing GCSE options? A visit to Barrafina will convince any hesitant Year 9 to sign up for Spanish, if there’s a chance it might facilitate a lifetime of perfect croquetas de jamón, buñuelos de bacalao, crispy chipirones and literally superlative patatas bravisimas. Authentic tapas, beautifully done, at five locations across London. A*s all round.

Teenagers know what’s happening in the world and will be eager to try the Syrian food at Imad’s Syrian Kitchen off Carnaby Street. Restaurateur Imad Alarnab came to the UK as a refugee and serves the food of his home country. Here’s hummus, falafel, fattoush and grilled lamb skewers but not like they’ll have seen them before. The mastic ice cream with pistachio and candy floss is a must-try.