The way to one's heart is through his stomach

When I was pregnant with our first child, many friends told us, we should still sleep, go out more, watch movies at the movie theatre and go out for lunch or dinner, while we still can. They were right for the most part, we could neither go to the movie theatre, nor could we have a good sleep, nor could we go to clubs/ bars,  for obvious reasons, although I never missed that. But we never had any problem going out for lunch or dinner with Zoë. 

Maybe it was because we never made any fuss about it, were relaxed about it, maybe it was just because she was easy with it. We went out for lunch for the first time, when she had been only a couple of weeks old. Since that we have been to restaurants at any time and any place. Simply when we felt like it. We never chose the restaurant for it´s family friendly characteristics either. We chose what we liked. 

And thankfully our baby boy Jarle is exactly as easy about it. So we can still enjoy, what we love most besides our tv series and movies - food!

So, the day before yesterday, we tried out the first real family friendly restaurant, that also calls itself a family restaurant, which goes by the name of "The Kidchen". It had its opening about two weeks ago and it is still brand new. 

The restaurant has a special chef de cuisine, namely Jens Dannenfeld, who has owned two Michelin stars during his career and has worked at "L´Escalier", a very well-known top french restaurant here in Cologne. The extraordinary thing about this restaurant, besides good food, is the indoor playground for kids. The concept implies, that parents should have a relaxed dinner, while the kids can play. 

The indoor playground is about 600 m^2 big and consists of a playground for babies until the age of 3 and a bigger playground. They have build a big kitchen, so the kids can play like mice in between food (obviously not real food), juice and the like, climb and build towers, play with big pieces of cake parts. I really loved that playground and so did our big girl. 

I have to say I was a bit disappointed by the food though, neither did I think it was set up really nicely, especially not for the kids, so my daughter did not have any reason for eating and would rather go on playing, which I thought was not the general idea of the concept. I think it should also stand out for its wonderful and appealing food for the youngsters. Nor did the food for us really satisfy or convince me. I chose the cod fish, which had been served with overly-roasted grains, so I could not eat any of the grains, because they had become bitter. And my husband chose the "Wiener Schnitzel", which had no special twist, nor a perfect potato salad and was not decorated nicely either. It was simply a boring, yet very delicious and tender Schnitzel. The desert was nothing extraordinary either. We had the "Kaiserschmarrn" and the chocolate mousse, both was good, but not extraordinary food. 

The staff was really nice, they tried convincing our daughter to eat, so she could have her desert. They were helpful and attentive.

They have also put a lot of thought in the needs of parents with children, so you can find a special nursing space, a changing table and kid´s chairs in different heights for babies and kids at the restaurant. Also they have a great selection of lemonades.

Furthermore there were only two families besides us visiting at that time, so I think you could kindly expect the chef or sous-chef to come out after dinner, if they were only open for two weeks, in order to ask personally, how we had enjoyed our dinner. But it is of course not a necessity.

So, will I go there again? Zoë really enjoyed herself and I think they will definitely improve themselves, so yes. I would go there again. But next time, we will bring some friends.