New fresh and healthy kid's menu at Trat'

A local nutritionist has teamed up with La Trattoria to launch a healthy new children’s menu. 

Catherine Burns approached the popular Hamilton restaurant a few months ago and has been working with its chef Angelo D’Amato to provide a wider range of tasty and healthy meal options for youngsters.

The new menu, which was officially launched yesterday, will include gluten-free and dairy-free desserts like the chocolate brownie with hidden garbanzo beans as well as a special veggie sauce for pizza and pasta dishes.

Mrs Burns, a mother-of-two who runs her own company, Natural Ltd, said: “This was a huge learning experience for me.

“It’s my first collaboration with a restaurant and I had to quickly come to terms with cost and labour limitations.

Affordable

“Our challenge was to maximize the nutritional value of the menu, whilst also keeping it practical and affordable for both
the restaurant and its guests.”

The new menu has been created on the back of a survey that Ms Burns conducted of more than 280-households about healthy children’s menus.

And it was also trialled at a local nursery school before being gradually introduced at La Trattoria over the past few weeks.

Ms Burns said the children’s menu is based around fresh and natural produce and has already been a big hit with youngsters.

She  added: “We’re very proud of what we have achieved. There’s no reason why people shouldn’t have treats, but we have just accommodated those that want to be healthy as well. 

“Healthy food has to be tasty, available and affordable if people are going to eat it, and La Trattoria has made that possible.”

Nicola Russo, manager of La Trattoria, said: “All our guests will have the familiar Trattoria experience that they enjoy, but we are over the moon with how we have improved our kid’s menu.

“Our chef Angelo worked with Catherine to create a new hidden veggie sauce that we put on most of our children’s pasta dishes and that we layer under the pizza sauce on the pizza.

“We have added healthy sides, wholewheat options and made sure that fruit and vegetables are openly on the menu too.

“And it’s all still within the same price range.

Mr Russo said the move to healthier children’s dishes was ‘an important step’ for the restaurant.

He added: “Many of us at La Trattoria are parents and grandparents. We want to feed Bermuda’s families the same quality of food we would feed our own.”

The new children’s menu also has detailed ‘nutrition notes’ on the back as well as allergy notes. 

To have a look at the menu go to the Natural Kids’ webpage www.natural.bm/kids