One of their favourite dinners at home is when mum does the cooking. Pasta with parmesan and olive tapenade. Kiana loves Sicilian olives, and Nic says she has high standards. "When we lived in London and she was about 5, she got used to eating Serrano or Iberico hams from Spain.It was all she knew so when she tried the standard stuff in a sandwich, she turned her nose up."
They are definitely well-educated children when it comes to quality ingredients, but they still like standard stuff. Lucas loves pineapple, especially when it's on one of mum's pizzas. It's a dinnertime staple - a flatbread base with Colby cheese, tomato and ham.
They have chickens in their garden and are looking at getting bees. They pick and know the herbs in the garden - Vietnamese mint, coriander, basil are all fun for the kids to watch grow and use at dinnertime.
Kiana loves collecting the eggs from their chickens and is a keen cook. Her signature dish is a carrot salad with snow peas and furikaki, a Japanese rice sprinkle. As their dad spends a lot of time at Masu, they have great palates for Japanese food. Okono Miyaki, the Japanese savoury pancake, is a staple, filled with prawns, cabbage, Japanese mayo, and tonkatsu sauce. They also love the sashimi at Masu but hold the wasabi.
Nic tells of when he was at Rocco and getting a then baby Kiana to try salted plum umeboshi (pickled fruit). He watched in awe as her face first screwed up then opened up with delight, wanting more. Starting them young seems to be the way to get adventurous eaters.
Lucas tinkers away in the kitchen some more as we chat and, before I leave, I am treated to his signature fresh juice - cucumber, apple and carrot. He's more interested in the gadgets in the kitchen and loves juices and smoothies, and funnily enough, seaweed. He munches through a sheet of it as they bid me goodbye - not just great food but top-notch service, too. Much like dad's restaurant.
Zoya Sahrawat
Sid Sahrawat's daughter Zoya's eating exploits are well documented - his wife Chand has been writing the blog Hospobaby, now a column in the Herald's Bite, since Zoya was a baby. She's now nearly 4 and is still an adventurous eater, as well as a keen cook.
"We've tried to feed her everything we eat from the beginning," Sid explains. He and Chand have never tried to dumb down the meals simply because she's a kid.
Zoya was into solids at four months old and at age 1 they took her to Depot where she got into the raw bar. Many adults would struggle to slurp down raw clams but Zoya ate them enthusiastically.
Sid finds it refreshing to see what she enjoys, and how her palate changes - he has created a couple of desserts at Sidart based on flavours Zoya is enjoying at the time - kiwifruit, and mandarin especially.
She loves cooking, but does more with Chand than Sid. She loves picking herbs with papa though, and she and Sid have a ritual at 5pm on a Monday, when the two of them will go foraging for herbs for the restaurant.
She'll help when she can in the kitchen, too: grating cheese and peeling parsnips, and she loves making dumplings.
When Sid is at home on Sundays and Mondays he tries to get into the kitchen and, just as at the Molloy Wright household, roast chicken is a family meal they relish, always with lots of veges.
Zoya Sahrawat loves being hands on in the kitchen with dad Sid. Photo / Doug Sherring
Zoya also loves noodles, fried rice, vegetable lasagne and Thai curry, although nothing too spicy. She loved the hawker market in Singapore when they visited earlier this year, and has mopped up bread and jus at some top steak houses.
Sid thinks parents can underestimate their children and believes they can step up in maturity if given the chance. He's not so keen on taking kids to fine-dining restaurants though, but that's more out of respect for the other diners than anything else.
He's not a fan of children's menus and is happy to adapt something on the menu for the more discerning childhood palate.
Kids are very subjective, and fickle, he thinks, noting that broccoli and asparagus are off the menu for Zoya at the moment. It will no doubt change though. Most green veges are unpopular but she'll happily down crayfish and prawns.
Expensive taste for one so young, and Sid smiles. When I ask Zoya if she's going to be a chef, she replies with a very positive "yes". She's probably in good hands for that.
Miller Molloy Wright
The French Cafe's Simon Wright explains that his son Miller, 6, has been a great eater from day one. "I've always made his food," explains Wright, and having a vacuum pack machine at the restaurant certainly helped.
When Miller was a baby, Wright would puree lamb stews or risotto or vegetables and vacuum pack them for the freezer to reheat in portions as needed. Although he's aware he has a skill set beyond other parents when it comes to cooking, and he knows it's easy for him to say, Wright truly believes that cooking for babies and children is simple.
"You know exactly what's going in, which you just don't get buying processed stuff in jars. I don't know when we lost the ability to feed ourselves," Wright states, and argues that people who say they can't cook have seemingly lost confidence before they've even started.
Good cooking is about respecting your ingredients. Growing a lot of their own vegetables at The French Cafe has opened a lot of his chefs' eyes to that idea.
At home, there's a vibrant vegetable and herb garden in their backyard and fruit trees up the side of the house. As well as teaching Miller where his food comes from, Wright is also determined that when he leaves home he'll have 20 dishes under his belt that he can "absolutely nail". And he probably couldn't get a better teacher.
Wright runs The French Cafe alongside wife Creghan Molloy Wright. Together, it means for a busy week, and the down time they have together as a family on Sundays and Mondays is precious. Roast chicken is a family staple, and Wright describes Miller as a "drum and bones man". He loves anything tactile related to food - soft tortillas you fill yourself from the little bowls laid out on the tables, and he also loves baking with mum.
Miller Molloy Wright, 6, was a great eater from day one, says his dad Simon. Photo / Getty Images
Cheese melted on to crackers is an afternoon tea staple, and he eats porridge religiously for breakfast. He's a creature of habit. He makes his own decisions when it comes to food, something Simon and Creghan have valued and encouraged since early on.
He helps dad whip up some guacamole while I'm visiting - ripe avocado, salt and pepper, although mum and dad will sneak in a bit of spice. One of his favourite simple dinners is a plain omelette, and Miller enthusiastically tells me that mum's and nana's are better than dad's, which has both parents laughing.
