london dining for family of seven

[cassis]

As a new member I would like to thank Andy and the others for their advice.  My family includes 5 from ages 15-23.  We are staying in Mayfair.  Most of us enjoy fine dining but are youngest two like simpler fair such as chicken, pasta, pizza, chips, creme brulee.  Love great wine.  We will be in London for 4 nights before flying over to Paris.  Do any of the finer restaurants offer something more basic without POing the chef and starting WWIII?

[Tonyfinch]

Others will correct me if I'm wrong but although there's a lot of choice in the Mayfair area it's unlikely that you're going to find many places which combine 'fine dining' with pizza,pasta,burgers etc.?

Is it important to you that you all eat together every night? If not,why not send the younger two off to ,say The Hard Rock Cafe,Pizza Express or Chez Gerard,while the rest of you explore some more 'upmarket' options. That way everyone has a good time.

If that's out you'd be daft to be paying Mayfair prices on youngsters who are not enjoying it.You'd be better off venturing more into the West End where hundreds of places might fit the bill.

Tell us what is excluded and what your price window is and and I'm sure we can come up with some reccs.

[jeremysco]

When my wife took me to Le Manoir for an anniversary lunch a couple of years ago we sat next to a table with a youngish couple with a high chair for their baby who ate specially prepared apple puree (ordering off menu at six months old!) and a child of about five who had the full tasting menu and hated almost every bit of it and left practically £95 of grub on the table. His high-pitched whining and complaining ruined our meal and I hope it ruined his parents too.

My advice would be to try and take in maybe the Conrans (Bluebird, Quaglinos), possibly the Peoples Palace  and also the River Cafe which always seems to have a fair number of children in it at weekend lunches.

The Conrans are not fine dining but the food is relatively simple and they do have chips. The Peoples Palace did a very simple pasta for a child once when we went (although that was some years ago) and the River Cafe can be excellent.

[cassis]

Thanks for the thoughtful suggestions. Close by loud or whiney groups can sure ruin the evening for others.  We are going to eat dinners together and behaving is no problem for this group on most nights unless the champagne, coke, Lafite, chocolate and Y'quem are overdosed.

    I have been accused of being daft, crazy, or brave on more than one occasion. It can work. We were in Istanbul at the Ciragan Palace for dinner last summer.  Laledan, overlooking the Bosphorus, was a magical setting with refined international cuisine with a French slant.  On the menu was a tempura fish of some local catch that was delicious.  There was a chicken dish on the menu.  Upon the request my 15 year old he was served the tempura chicken of his lifetime. A memorable evening that may be hard to duplicate again but its worth the effort.

    I would like to keep the fare to under $100 per person. Any experience or thoughts on The Ivy, Blue Elephant, La Tante Claire, The Square, Parade, Opus 70, Le Souffle, Montana, Zafferano, Assaggi, La Famiglia, Pizza Metro or other Italian.  

    Looking forward to beginning a wonderful three weeks over there.  Alan

[cabrales]

La Tante Claire and The Square are the restaurants that would, for me, offer markedly better food than the other restaurants listed. However, they would both appear to be relatively unreceptive to having small children as diners. (Note I generally tend to prefer French restaurants, and that these are the restaurants in the list you provided that are Michelin two-starred.)  

[cassis]

Thank you for the advice. Fine dinning plus something for the not so small 15 and 17 year old may be harder than I thought.  We are off to Paris after London so perhaps I will have some success there in combining the two but maybe not.  Dropping down to good instead of fine dinning perhaps something like Criterion Brasserie, Parisienne Chophouse, Christopher's American Grill, Pizza Metro, Orso, Harrods,  or Buona Sera will fit the bill.

[Tonyfinch]

Steer well clear of the Criterion Brasserie and Parisienne Chophouse. The former is a lovely room but the food is very ordinary. I've not eaten at the latter but everything one reads and hears points to "rip off".

Christopher's in Covent Garden (there's a new branch in Victoria) and Orso would both be good choices. Joe Allen in Covent Garden has a menu and atmosphere to please a range of ages.

Unless you're a  hot shot you might have trouble getting into The Ivy. You might have more luck with the similarly eclectic Le Caprice. I don't know Pizza Metro or Buena Sera but there are loads of good Italians in London. The Time Out guide lists all the best ones.

[cassis]

Thanks for the info. Called Ivy and they max out at tables of six unless you are somebody famous I guess.  Did book Le Caprice. For pre Apollo Victoria Theatre on Sat. we will try Christopher's Victoria.  Still have two more nights to think about and will do Italian one of them.

[circeplum]

the blue elephant is fantastically child-friendly at the weekend - sunday, i think.  they do a massive buffet with an enormous range of dishes, unusually freshly-prepared for this type of operation, which youngsters and grown-ups love - my kids usually od on the dim sum-type stuff.  they often put on some kind of entertainment.

plus people of all ages seem to love the bonkers decor: all huts, streams with fish, and a jungle-like profusion of plants.

wapping food is also brilliant for young people: they love the strange bits of old machinery which the staff seem quite happy to let them interact with.

[magnolia]

Not upmarket but very kid-friendly and good is Metro Pizza (64c Battersea Rise, SW11 EQ tel: 020 7228

3812)  depending on where you're from, if you can't get good pizza there...and/or if your kids are pining for it, this is a great option. The pizza is not only the best in London - which admittedly isn't saying much - but it's good by any standards.

Ransome's Dock is also very kid-friendly, if a bit of a pain to get to (also Battersea but on Parkgate Road, not near any particular underground). They deal well with picky eaters and special food requests etc.

[cassis]

Family dining in the UK, Paris, Champagne, Burgundy, Switzerland, and Italy, during our recent three- week vacation in Europe was memorable. Our French is poor and we did carry a menu translator but did not use it very often. In general the menus were presented to us in English either verbally or by a staff person with very good command of English. Our group of seven included a 14 and 17 year old who have limited items they enjoy but still were wowed and welcomed by many of the places we dined. We ordered Ala Carte and with plenty of Bresse Chicken, bread, and dessert after dessert for them we were all very happy with our "fine dining". We were unable to do any complete menus of the day because this would require pretty much everyone to order the complete multi-course menu, but I never felt this was much of a problem and would not have given up the family experience in exchange for sampling more courses. I will post our extraordinary French experience elsewhere.

Our favorite family dinner in London was at The Park in the Mandarin Oriental across from Hyde Park. The restaurant was recently remodeled in modern light colors and woods. For the young folks there was pizza or chicken. Scallops with baby corn and relish, chicken soup, dim sum, or crab cakes with lobster, spring rolls with duck, risotto with asparagus-pancetta & blue cheese, lemon sole, raisin and nut bread for munchies, all fairly priced, nicely presented and very tasty. Upstairs is a starred restaurant with more gourmet interest and higher prices.

Lunch at Fortum & Maison was fair but the tea was fabulous. Selfridge's was very interesting with choices from sushi to corn beef finished up with Leonida's chocolate. Pizza Express by the National Gallery was very tasty.

Quaglinos was a beautiful modern to be seen in kind of place with live jazz, lots of expensive shellfish and our least favorite meal but still good.

Before seeing Bombay Dreams (good not great) had an early dinner at Christopher's with nice Main Lobster, mashed potatoes, pomme frites, chicken, crab cakes, and nice modern decor.

Last nights dinner was at Caprice. A nice dinner but somewhat smokey. Duck salad, scallops, endive salad with mustard dressing, gnocchi with peas, Halibut, beets with creamy horseradish, Haddock and chips, chicken with spicy Chinese sauce, baked Alaska, and chocolate souffle made for a very enjoyable evening to cap off our four days in London. A very nice start indeed to help get us ready for the next four days in Paris.