Kids friendly restaurant guide in Los Angeles with my friends from Cybex

As most of you know, I am the mother of three beautiful children and I love to eat and visit restaurants! With children, especially in LA, it can be difficult to find family-friendly spots that serve phenomenal food. For this reason, my friends at CYBEX invited me to create a guide of kid-friendly restaurants in LA that are delicious and make it super easy to dine with little ones.

I’ve put together a quick list of my fave spots! Not only are they spectacular places where families can enjoy delicious food, but these are also spaces adapted for kids with great family friendly ‘amenities’ including spacious bathrooms with changing tables, entertainment for all, kid-friendly menu choices and smart seating options for kids of all ages. As part of our tour, we also gifted CYBEX’s new LEMO High Chair to the restaurants to enhance the dining experience for families with young children. The LEMO system is designed to grow with your family and allows for changes on the fly without the need for cumbersome tools.

I love the LEMO so much that I use them at home too. I love the versatility and how it has so many different uses. With a newborn, you can attach the Bouncer Nest to keep your baby close to family while dining and most importantly at table height! Then at 6 months, attach the Baby Set to the LEMO transforming it into a classic highchair with harness and baby tray. And from three years and up, remove the baby set and voila, a great looking ergonomic chair that anyone in the family can sit in! It’s super easy to adjust the depth and height for the perfect fit – It’s so comfortable that I find myself sitting in the LEMO more than our actual dining room chairs! Bonus for parents, it is so easy to clean and with little ones that is a top priority!

On a recent adventure we ventured out with our three kids in tow to visit our top four favorite kid-friendly restaurants in LA - Let’s Dine!

Our first stop was Eatalian Cafe in Gardena, a bustling "bodegón” style Italian restaurant with a phenomenal children's menu. We tried a variety of traditional hearty dishes and family staples including their signature Rock Pizza oozing with pepperoni, bacon and gorgonzola, and Salmone al Pesto, a super fresh dish exploding with flavors and an amazing house made Pesto. We finished off the meal satisfying my middle one’s sweet tooth with a delicious array of pastries and ice cream. Filled with families and lots of laughter, Eatalian was a perfect first spot.

Stop #2 touched my heart deeply. I first visited Carousel in Glendale, a Lebanese-Armenian restaurant, in 2009 when I was dating my husband. Specializing in Middle Eastern food with original family recipes passed down through generations, Carousel offers a wide variety of vegan and vegetarian options as well as delicious seafood dishes such as hummus, kebab, tabbouleh, muhammara, and our family’s favorite warak enab. It brings me right back to my childhood home every time. Dining Tip: they offer special menus for family gatherings!

Stop #3 celebrates the other side of my family – At Malbec Cuisine, Eagle Rock, we traveled to Argentina through the senses. We were transported home with a feast that began with a delicious assortment of handmade empanadas filled with meat, ham, cheese, and our little one’s favorite, lamb. We ate to our hearts content ordering a gorgeous rib eye, sweetbreads, traditional fugazzeta pizza (onions and cheese) and ham and cheese sorrentinos. Dessert certainly exceeded our expectations, and my grandmother would certainly agree. From the flan to the dulce de leche pancakes – it seemed too good to be true.

The finishing touch to our culinary family tour was C&O in Marina Del Ray, an Italian-style restaurant that offers everything from elaborate Italian antipasti filled with battered calamari, caprese salad and mozzarella marinara, to more substantial options such as pastas, pizzas, meatballs and assorted meat dishes. We decided on boneless beef short ribs with mashed potatoes, and pasta with chicken breast, asparagus and pesto – with kids, pasta certainly makes everything more interesting!

We had an amazing outing with our friends at CYBEX and as a family of five we are happy to say that we finished this delicious culinary tour with no accidents at the table or broken dishes in our wake. Our kids felt perfectly at home in the LEMO “forever” chairs, safe and harnessed, because we all know that if you leave them loose they will go running! We hope that this tour inspires you and your families to get out and explore your neighborhood restaurants with little ones to discover some new favorites. And when in LA, check out our faves! We’d love to hear how you like them.