Junior diners shunning nuggets in favour of grown-up food

There's a new breed of young diner in town, and chicken nugget makers should be feeling nervous. Restaurants are dumping kids' menus because their junior customers want out of their food ghetto and in on the main menu. Fuelled by cooking shows, and spin-offs such as Junior MasterChef, restaurateurs across Sydney are changing their approach.

"I don't want to sell nuggets and chips," says Ian Oakes, the chef-owner at polished Bondi Beach restaurant, Drake.

"We have no written kids menu, we'll adapt a version of most of our main courses for them [for $15]. Kids today are getting more sophisticated about what they'll eat."

It's the same deal over at Efendy in Balmain, where they also throw in an ice-cream for the $15 price tag. "It teaches them to eat like an adult. I'm amazed how much kids know about food today. I've done workshops at schools; they know the difference between thyme and oregano," Efendy's owner-chef Somer Sivrioglu says.

Restaurateur Sam Christie says it needs to be a horses for courses approach. At his Longrain restaurant spice can be an issue for younger diners, so they might tuck into fried chicken and noodles, but over at Apollo the kids are all over the Greek offering.