Restaurants: Beyond Kool-Aid | kids' drinks

Kids' restaurant menus have gotten more grown-up; now so have kids' drink choices. At Manhattan's Per Se (Time Warner Center, 10 Columbus Circle; 212-823-9335), sommelier Paul Roberts can suggest soda pairings like Gus's Meyer lemon and Valencia orange for seafood and Boylan's birch beer for meat. Per Se's cellar also has bottles of Navarro winery's Gewürztraminer and Pinot Noir grape juices. In Chicago, Bin 36 (275 Parkway Dr.; 847-808-9463) serves flights of milk—vanilla, chocolate, strawberry and plain—on paper tasting maps just like the ones it uses for wine tastings, while The Peninsula Chicago (108 E. Superior St.; 312-337-2888) offers children ginger ale mixed with cherry-citrus sangria syrup in a tall crystal Champagne flute garnished with gummy bears.

Published June 2004