We took our daughter Eve to Jamie's Italian when she was just 10 days old and it was a pleasant experience - though how much of this was down to the venue or the fact the baby slept through the entire meal I'm not sure.
It was a weekday lunchtime and I was present due to my 2-week paternity leave. Dads - I highly recommend taking the maximum your company will allow and will perhaps write a small blog entry on this to explore the options further.
We have a fairly big pram, a second-hand Mamas & Papas Pliko Pramette. We wheeled it in to the front desk and the front-of-house woman told us we'd have to wait maybe 15mins but we could happily wait at the bar and have a drink and some nibbles in the meantime.
If you've been to Jamie's you'll know it can get packed, especially in the bar area. If this was the case, we might have found it difficult to fit the pram in. Even if there was room, it would have felt cramped and we might have worried about the baby being jogged. As it was, there was not a rush on and there was ample room for all of us.
15 minutes (or less) later and we were shown to our table, at the back of the ground floor in a booth - plenty of room for baby's pram.
Throughout the meal the staff seemed to be mindful of Eve. They were very good about not leaning over the pram with steaming hot plates of food balanced precariously on their trembling hands and remembered to ask us if we needed anything for her.
Jamie's is, of course, a noisy place and despite it not being rammed full on the day we visited it was still hard to hear someone on the table opposite at times. Usually, you wouldn't even notice this but with a baby in tow I was mindful of the noise. Luckily Eve slept right through the meal so the noise either isn't actually a problem or we have an angelic baby! Just something to beware of.
Jamie's made for a pleasant excursion and a memorable first restaurant meal with our baby.
Recommended at quieter times.
