Partying Down: the Under-4 Crowd

BOSTON —  As usual, the first-floor lounge at Biba was packed with a chic, exclusive crowd.

To a one, the guests wore drop-dead outfits, sporting the newest looks from GapKids and Stride Rite. Boys chased girls, but because this was a modern assemblage, the girls also freely chased the boys. Their mean age was somewhere shy of 3. Among the most urgent subjects of discussion was, just when could they dig into the drumsticks rolled in Grape Nuts?

Usually, said Lydia Shire, chef/owner of this restaurant overlooking the Boston Public Gardens, “you can’t even get in here. Usually we have a waiting line.”

But Shire, bouncing her 16-month-old son Alex on her lap as she spoke, was referring to her restaurant’s more habitual, chronologically adult clientele. Today was a day for the younger gourmets, a day to celebrate Jenifer Lang’s new children’s cookbook and a day for the leading chefs of Boston to gather together--not as competitors but as a kind of grand extended family.

Shire paused to trade hugs with Fiona Hamersley, chef/owner of Hamersley’s Bistro, in Boston’s swiftly gentrifying South End. Soon they were joined by Nancy White, who with her husband, Jasper, operates Jasper’s in the city’s commercial district. Moments later Michela Larson, the owner of Michela’s in Cambridge, arrived and was herself swiftly swept into this most companionable of conversations.

All of these restaurants rank at the top of the 1992 Zagat Boston Restaurant Survey; all of the female chef/proprietors are in their late 30s or early 40s; all juggle families as they run their critically acclaimed eateries. And they all get along.

While their mothers talked of fish stock and fava beans, Alexander Shire played with 16-month-old Sophie Hamersley, and 17-month-old Tony Larson took off after 3-year-old Jasper White and his 8-month-old sister, Mariel.

In the space of a moment, the conversation shifted from desserts to diaper services. Tony Larson let out a healthy whoop. Mariel White tossed Jell-O salad at her brother. Wait a minute. Was this one of the hottest restaurants in town, or was this just another gourmet day-care center?

Fiona Hamersley watched the commotion with serene maternal detachment. “There’s really not a heck of a lot of difference between a restaurant and a day-care center,” Hamersley opined. “It’s all barely controlled chaos, and actually some of the customers at our restaurant don’t behave as well as these people.

“Babies don’t object to where they’re sitting,” she continued. In the end, “maybe it’s only the drinking age that’s different.”

While the mothers nibbled on the food spread out on Lydia Shire’s long wooden bar, the children threw the food. Jenifer Lang dodged a projectile fashioned from her own quesadilla recipe. “They’re going to have to hose this place down,” she said, with just a note of nervousness in her voice.

Shire was unfazed. The sturdy tile floor was imported from an old convent in France, she explained.

“The floor has withstood centuries of use,” Shire said. “This is a solidly built restaurant. And that I am happy about.”