Can I send a dish back just because I didn’t like it? How do we split the check without causing a fight in the group chat? In Code of Conduct, our restaurant etiquette column, we explore the do’s and don’ts and IDKs of being a good diner.
Who could forget the infamous Alinea Baby incident of 2014, when someone brought an eight-month-old to Grant Achatz’s three-Michelin-starred Chicago restaurant? “Tbl brings 8mo.Old,” Achatz tweeted. “It cries. Diners mad. Tell ppl no kids? Subject diners 2crying?” It would seem we have yet to find a good solution to Achatz’s dilemma.
2022 was the year of Reddit Woman, who asked to switch tables in a fancy restaurant because she was seated near a crying baby, then was purportedly called an a**hole by the baby’s mother. More recently, a British diner who spent 300 British pounds (about $378) on a fancy dinner seethed that “selfish” parents should leave their kids at home: “Deliveroo exists for a reason,” she wrote on the parenting blog Mumsnet. “Babies need sleep, not fine dining.” (In a poll posted under her complaint, 73% of the nearly 4,000 respondents assured her she was not being unreasonable.)
It’s easy to groan when you spot a stroller entering a hallowed dining room with its tweezered food or feel personally attacked if a toddler’s shrieks pierce the hushed tones. After all, you paid a lot for a memorable night—and not that kind of memorable. Still, some fine dining restaurants go to great lengths to accommodate parents with small children, a generosity aimed at making families feel welcome.
Of course, there’s a big difference between providing an unforgettable experience for an excited child and being forced to run damage control so other diners don’t start fuming. Between some good judgment on the part of parents, fellow diners showing a bit of grace, and restaurants wanting to extend hospitality to families, the presence of kids in pricey restaurants doesn’t have to provoke such rage.
Plenty of fine dining restaurants aren’t for kids, but when a New Jersey business banned young ones, it reignited an old debate—one that writer Jessica Blankenship argues is missing the point of restaurants.
“‘Alinea baby’ was a pivotal moment for a lot of us,” says Michael Muser, co-owner and director of operations at two-Michelin-starred Ever Restaurant and After Lounge in Chicago. (As of February 18, 2025, Muser announced he’s departing Ever and After to pursue solo projects.) “We realized our Michelin-starred restaurant doesn’t care if you bring your babies. I want you in my restaurant. The onus is on us to manage; that’s what we do.”
Not all chefs are so open to having kids in their dining rooms, though. Dave Beran, chef and owner of Seline in Santa Monica, puts his cerebral, 18-course tasting menu on par with attending a three-hour play with mature themes. “The reality is we’re crafting an adult experience that requires a certain level of maturity and understanding,” says Beran, father to a five-month-old and two-and-a-half-year-old. “It’s 100 percent on the parents to decide if their child has the capacity to understand and act in an acceptable manner within those parameters.”
The last thing a restaurant wants—particularly one that might host only 50 diners each night—is to turn away customers. But some find ways to say “no kids” without actually saying it. Carbone doesn’t allow strollers in any of its locations, a guest relations representative told Bon Appétit in an email. Seline doesn’t have high chairs, mostly due to a lack of storage space. Beran hasn’t needed any yet, anyway. Parents take their kids to his more casual French bistro, Pasjoli, where staff have had to politely ask several to “rein in their kids,” he says. “We don’t ever want to be the ones to tell a parent that they’re not doing the best job parenting.”
For some parents, the price and stakes of fancy dining as a family feel too high to be worth the hassle. Chicago-based parents Bill Higgins and Jessica Dixon love an occasional over-the-top dinner, but they don’t take their two young children along. “Partly, it feels wasteful,” Higgins says. “The biggest thing for me is not intruding on other diners spending $500 a person. I’d rather die.”
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