Cantina del Ponte

Until last June, my attitude to children was - how can I put this - less than tolerant. While broadly appreciating the necessity of ensuring the continuation of the human race, I was very much of the view that infants should be neither seen nor heard, packed away to giant boarding-schools-cum-detention centres until the age of sixteen and only released into society when, or indeed if, they could demonstrate sociability, courtesy and calm.

And then, as many readers will know, I became an uncle and fell so besottedly in love with my baby nephew that I went overnight from making Herod seem like a role-model for responsible childcare to being a modern-day male Mary Poppins but with a better holdall. Thus it was that when a press release arrived inviting me to try out D&D London's smart South Bank Italian Cantina del Ponte's new family menu, instead of filing it under 'A' for "Are you out of your tiny mind?" as I would have done pre-unclehood, I accepted on the condition that I could experience it properly - with a child in tow.