One Fat Frog loves a good restaurant debate. Last weekend a big debate erupted in the food service industry regarding children and whether they should be allowed in fine dining establishments. And like all controversial discussions nowadays, it started because of a tweet.
On Saturday, Chef Grant Achatz, chef of Alinea restaurant in Chicago, took to Twitter to complain about a crying child in his fine dining establishment. Alinea is a three-star restaurant (one of only two restaurants with that honor in Chicago) and it is one of the most expensive restaurants in the United States. With that in mind, customers who are actually able to get a reservation at the swanky restaurant want to have a pristine dining experience once they are there. A crying baby, as you can imagine, threw off the ambiance just a tad.
Achatz then took to Twitter to vent. And because it’s Twitter, you have to excuse the grammar and spelling. He wrote: “Tbl brings 8mo.Old. It cries. Diners mad. Tell ppl no kids? Subject diners 2crying? Ppl take infants 2 plays? Concerts? Hate saying no, but..”
Because this is Twitter, the planet overreacted, with some calling him an elitist snob who hates kids and some crowning him the champion of everyone offended by annoying crying babies, and some complaining on Twitter about someone complaining on Twitter. It sparked enough of a debate on the topic that Achatz appeared on “Good Morning America.
So the question is, should children be allowed in a fine dining restaurant? For his part, Chef Achatz doesn’t really seem to take a side. He said that it’s important for children to experience fine dining at an early age, but he also said the wishes of other customers have to be respected.
A lot of restaurants in recent years have gone with child bans, most notably pricier restaurants in New York. So where do you come down on this issue? Are kids a nuisance that should be kept out of “classy” restaurants? Or should people lighten up and let kids be kids? I mean, I would understand if it was the Devil Baby…