The Four Seasons has baby menus that on a hungover day, might make you turn away from the buffet, pick up a small spoon and take a bowl of chickpeas with cauliflower cheese and nutmeg (meant for a discerning seven-month old) under the table until you felt better.

Children and high-end hotels are in fact a perfect match for each other.

Children have whims, passing fancies, outrageous demands. Posh hotels are in the business of delivering them. "Here is your suit of armour. Will there be anything else?" "Oh yes, there certainly will."

Everyone's a winner, apart maybe from the schmucks who wind up paying.

Both these hotels were, unsurprisingly, booked out for Sunday lunch. We went instead to Itsa 4 in Sandymount. Their website says that they love children and the guy on the phone was very accommodating, allocating our party of four adults and four non-adults a booth, perfect for what we needed, with its gentle implication of containment.

The room is neat and understated, little bursts of colour and desirable wallpaper to brighten a darkish space. The booths work to give a feeling of communal but separate eating. We arrived early and tucked ourselves into our allotment. A high-chair was brought and parked.

The brunch menu is short enough, reasonably priced and straightforward. They have children's portions of the adult dishes available and our waitress was helpful in offering various alternative combinations.

Eggs Benedict were as they should be, with good sharp hollandaise and nicely poached eggs. A hamburger with Swiss cheese and bacon, salad, sauces and chips was straightforward, tidy and very good. Potato skins with cheese, smoked bacon and sour cream made their eater happy, while venison sausages with champ and a rich dark jus were full of gamey flavour.

One child had a portion of pasta with a cream and bacon sauce, which she seemed to like. (I thought it was good. ) The other child of ordering age had the roast of the day, which was beef rib served pink with gravy, mashed potato and baby carrots, a meal that reflected well on the people that had cooked it and on the six-year old that ate it.

There was good, popular homemade lemonade and a carafe of not homemade but no less popular Rioja from an interesting wine list.

We ordered a tasting plate of desserts and a brownie with ice cream.

There was sticky toffee pudding and a dark chocolate torte and various sauces and ice creams and a sorbet. The brownie was a winner, the other things all seemed to err on the side of sweetness to me, the sorbet and chocolate cake in particular. It seems ridiculous to fault a sticky toffee pudding for being too sweet so I'll stop there.

Everything was eaten anyway. We had good coffees with this. The coffee was Fairtrade, many of the vegetables were organic and sources were listed for all the meat and fish.

The booth worked reasonably well as a prison until the restaurant's small reproduction Louis XV throne-like chairs (provided for children) were spotted and occupied. Based on his chairs, Louis XV must have been about 18 inches tall.

The French revolution really was inevitable. Our occupant of the high chair sampled bits of everything throughout the meal and occasionally let us know who was in charge. The other guy just hit the table and threw things on the ground but in a happy way.

Staff were pleasant. Service was low-key and unfussy, in keeping I would say with the ethos of the whole enterprise. The children liked it. Nice but quite small, one of them told me when we were leaving and I didn't argue.

WHAT'S THE DEAL?

Highlight: Menu, wine list, prices
Lowlight: Not much

Hamburger 14.95 Eggs Benedict 11.95 Venison sausages 20.00 Potato skins 9.95 Kid's roast 10.95 Kid's pasta 3.95 Dessert tasting plate 15.00 Brownie with ice cream 5.50 Carafe wine 14.50 2 x lemonade @ 3.00 6.00 Apple juice 4.00 3 x coffee 6.00 3 x cappuccino 7.50 Large mineral water 3.95 Total: 134.20 Itsa 4 6A Sandymount Green Dublin 4 Tel: 01 219 4676