Perched in an egg-shaped booster seat at her father’s critically acclaimed restaurant, West Bridge, little Augusta Gaudet can’t stop smiling. At 9 months old, she’s the center of attention as servers stop by to ooh and aah over her cherubic cheeks and waving arms. Although she’s clearly a VIP at West Bridge, what might be surprising is that all kids visiting the Kendall Square eatery get special treatment. Any child dining at the restaurant has access to a secret menu that includes a mini hamburger, mac ’n’ cheese and chicken fingers created by Augusta’s dad, chef/owner Matthew Gaudet, named by Food and Wine magazine as one of the country’s 10 best new chefs in 2013. Eschewing the processed fare typical of kids’ menus, Gaudet uses the same locally sourced, organic ingredients found in his refined creations for grown-ups to prepare mac ’n’ cheese (made to order with elbow macaroni and a blend of asiago, cheddar and Meunster) and chicken fingers (featuring either Giannone or Crystal Valley D’Artagnan chicken and housemade sourdough breadcrumbs).

If none of the items on the secret menu pass muster, Gaudet’s kitchen will graciously whip up special requests, such as handmade pasta tossed with butter and herbs, as long as they have the ingredients on hand. And they’ll adjust items from the regular menu as needed. (Seafood potage with calamari  “noodles” was a particular hit.) His staff—from those at the front of the house to the sous-chefs and line cooks in the kitchen—are trained to view the treatment of their pint-sized guests as an extension of their hospitality ethos. “I preach a solid ethos of guests first,” Gaudet says. “We come last. It’s a hospitality business. My feeling is kids should grow up around a table and should learn manners and compose themselves in a dining room. For a society, it’s great to have kids learn to use silverware and be socialized. Our responsibility in the restaurant is to host the possibility of parents teaching their kids.”

Gaudet is not the only chef with a progressive attitude about kids and fine dining. Census data suggest parents of young children are increasingly drawn to urban areas—last year, Trulia pegged Boston at number eight on its list of the top 10 metropolitan areas for “stroller set” population growth. And a growing number of restaurants, especially in neighborhoods where many young families have chosen to settle, view children as integral to their success. Unsurprisingly, many of their chefs are parents themselves.

Says Peter McCarthy, chef/owner of EVOO and Za, and the father of 9-year-old Shane and 6-year-old Caitlyn, “Our goal here is to serve great food in a comfortable atmosphere, not to be pretentious. After 17 years, we’ve seen parents with their kids, then their kids come back with their dates, and eventually their own kids.” The idea of dining as a multigenerational event extends to both of his adjoining restaurants, despite their very different menus and price points. While Za is a pizza parlor serving $10 pies, and EVOO’s mains run upward of $25, they share spacious bathrooms outfitted with changing tables and a similar family-friendly attitude. Children entering the EVOO door receive crayons and paper, and the same warm attention, as they do when they’re greeted at Za. McCarthy says, “Children are just as welcome here as at Za. Many of the waitstaff and back of the house that work at EVOO also work at Za.”

Like McCarthy, chef Rachel Klein of Liquid Art House, the 10,000-square-foot restaurant/gallery in the Back Bay, believes that it’s just good business to market to tots. “From a chef’s perspective,” she says, “you’d be stupid not to cater to children. They’re future diners. They eat out more than they ever have.” Klein, the mother of 3-year-old Eva and 7-year-old Ethan, is sensitive to parents’ struggle to maintain their own interests—like good food, wine and company—in the face of family demands. When she was at the Seaport Hotel’s Aura, Klein created the popular event series Fine Dining, Family Style, where parents could grab cocktails and a refined meal while their children could design their own bento box, then be entertained by crafts and activities in a separate play area. Plans are in the works for a similar family-centric event at LAH, where parents will be able to dine at leisure while their kids learn about and create art—without breaking any of the thousand-dollar Lithuanian glasswork on display. “Children might not understand what’s around them,” Klein says of fine art and food, “but they’re exposed to it.” She speaks from experience. “I grew up going to art galleries, and my dad painted. Every year we had a trip to Europe and a trip somewhere in the U.S. And I remember that—my fondest memories were food and art memories. What my parents have exposed me to has really affected me.”

Not every chef/parent believes that fine dining and children can or should be mixed. Tony Maws, father of 6-year-old Charlie, welcomes children to his neighborhood bar/restaurant the Kirkland Tap and Trotter with a kids’ menu that includes a housemade hot dog, and his kitchen at Craigie on Main will happily create kid-pleasing plates like buttered pasta from scratch. But he thinks that guests at Craigie, who often come to have business dinners or celebrate a special occasion, “have a right to dine in peace.” The white tablecloths and tasting menus at Craigie are a far cry from the more relaxed Kirkland, where Charlie’s colorful drawings of ingredients and creative spellings of their names (“leak,” “chickin” and “snaper”) enliven the five-item kids’ menu, all of which Charlie has tried and enjoyed. “Yesterday I was looking at a table with kids at brunch,” Maws says of the atmosphere at Kirkland, “and their granola was all over the floor. No one blinked.”

Since even the most well-behaved child is prone to accidental spills and fidgety exuberance, it helps if the restaurant doesn’t take itself too seriously. Gaudet thinks West Bridge “attracts families because we have an indestructible space,” one lacking tablecloths and lined with polished wood flooring. “If something falls on the floor, it won’t cost any money to steam it from rugs,” he says. Klein likewise appreciates a move away from fine-dining pretensions. “I feel like Liquid Art House is like home, not a cold, untouchable museum, but open to all types of people,” she says. “I’m most proud of the diversity of our crowd.”

The trend toward inclusive dining is in full effect at State Park. The neighborhood bar and restaurant is a hub for disparate groups who meet over the Southern-influenced creations of chef Tyler Sundet, a co-owner along with his wife, pastry chef Rachel Sundet of Hungry Mother. On any given night, young families having dinner sit at booths next to couples on dates and afterwork crowds out for a drink. Rachel Sundet says fellow co-owners Rachel Miller Munzer and her husband, Alon, have a “signature move” of taking kids on walks around whichever restaurant they’re working, be it Hungry Mother or State Park, where they’re fawned over by the staff while their parents dine. And if a child orders the popular BBQ spaghetti on State Park’s menu, it’s sure to come out with an extra, mountainous helping of shaved parmesan on top.

Having a child had a profound effect on the way the Sundets view the food they eat and serve. Says Tyler, “I’ve been more aware of things that have been raised organically. It’s much more important to me that Zev [his 13-month-old son] is eating good food.” That evolution is evident in the dishes at State Park, which opened in late 2013 with a bar-centric menu long on fried foods and short on vegetables and sides. State Park’s new menu has changed to more closely resemble its upscale older sibling Hungry Mother, where Sundet worked the line with chef/co-owner Barry Maiden, with an expanded selection of seasonal vegetables and sides, as well as greens to round out the entrees.

He’s not the only chef to notice a subtle but significant shift in his cooking. “Subconsciously it’s entered my mind and lexicon,” says West Bridge’s Gaudet. “My wife is a gluten-free person, and it seeps into my creative process. Having a kid is a similar thing—I’m experimenting with textures and making things smoother.” He says his evolution as a chef and as a father has come full circle. “My wife and I find a lot of cool base ideas for Augusta’s food through Alain Ducasse’s Cooking for Kids cookbook,” Gaudet explains. “Which is funny because I spent many hours poring over his recipes as a younger cook for my own education. Somehow I think there has become a common ground with some of my flavor combinations in my food and Augusta’s food we make.” And with the move away from a precious fine-dining atmosphere, that common ground may become even more common.