Qualitaly_113

OCT. NOV. 2019 VII The atmosphere is traditional and familiar. The furnishings and materials used are almost always natural: stone, wood and iron. Family-friendly is a term that today is often used to describe a place that offers useful services for both parents and children. An attractive formula that attracts many customers in the places that offer it. So seductive that some restaurateurs, in order to attract more customers to their premises, promise services that they cannot offer for various reasons, especially logistical. In our country, there are many restaurants with games rooms, where adults can have dinner with friends, without worrying about their children who, while having fun in the spaces adjacent to where they are eating, are now many. Here, entertainment is essential, a relatively young service that 20 years ago did not exist, but today, however, almost all family-oriented rooms offer it. Some operators, to save on costs, make use of internal human resources, others instead rely on external companies, specializing in animation. “We try to propose an animation as broad as possible with choices that do not exclude anyone – says Davide Maffei of Bodio, in the province of Varese, owner of the Mad Hatter, organizer of corporate events and entertainment – Often we find ourselves with children of different ages, in small spaces and perhaps with a single entertainer. In this case, we start with the creation of games with recycled materials, then move on to a musical animation and end with a more articulated show that is usually of magic. There is no doubt that places of this kind require rather large spaces, furniture and essential comforts: high chairs, changing tables for changing diapers and elevators, if the room is not on the ground floor, to ensure that families with pushchairs can reach the tables. Finally, the new mothers appreciate the corners where they can breastfeed their new-borns. The room must therefore be comfortable and, above all, functional. ‘ Today, design is intelligent when it interprets simplicity and ease – says Franco Costa, president of Costa Group (a company specialising in the creation and design of public establishments) – Those who decide to open a restaurant must think that they do not do so for themselves but for the public; and for the public they must create situations in which the fundamental condition is the smile and the atmosphere, which, together with quality, create favourable situations that make a restaurant comfortable.” Aesthetics plays its part and to create the right atmosphere to make the establishment’s customers feel good is very important, so lighting, space and furnishings are essential. Giuseppe Dondoni, architect and designer of entertainment venues says: “In family-friendly bars/ restaurants it is better to avoid dark areas, with soft, minimalist lighting, which is now so popular in fashionable venues that focus mainly on the scenic impact. Since the structures and volumes of the family rooms are quite large and bright, the atmosphere must be enjoyable and as ‘extreme’ as possible. Better if the lighting devices are not LED lamps but warm and diffused lights.” FAMILY-FRIENDLY VENUES IN ITALY There is no official census from which data on local family-friendly restaurants can be collected, but reliable information can be obtained by surfing the internet, where you can already guess that the formula pro-family is more successful in the north – and especially in the provinces – and especially near the motorway junctions, because they are easy to reach by families living in neighbouring municipalities. This does not mean that there are none in the city or that they are not created. On the contrary, if we carefully analyse the phenomenon, we can notice that recently a great number of them are emerging in the big cities, but different from the peripheral ones in terms of approach and concept. “The family friendly restaurants in cities – points out the architect Dondoni – have a completely different approach from those of the towns. An example that better clarifies this concept is the City Life District, in Milan, where there is an entire floor dedicated exclusively to food, where pizzerias and restaurants of all nationalities parade, including a rather large area dedicated to children. It is clear that in this case the family-friendly restaurant is the whole building and no longer the single restaurant.” Leaving the former Fiera district, again in Milan, we head towards the centre through the districts of Milan’s nightlife, Simplon, Brera and Isola, where there are – one after the other – historical bars, restaurants and trattorias and new establishments, whose walls once housed old factories or offices of large insurance companies or banks. These are important places, which every evening host people of all kinds and targets, including families with children. “I believe that today the attention