Kids learn dining manners

Young diners were party to a culinary adventure last weekend at Oysters Restaurant in Corona del Mar, owned by Alan Ludloff and Lagunan Suzanne Redfearn.

Along with her husband Cary, Redfearn is the soon-to-be owner of Ford’s Restaurant, planned at the site of the current Cedar Creek Inn, 384 Forest Ave., in Laguna Beach.

The Redfearns also operated Oceans 33 in the Mission Viejo Mall until recently.

A conditional-use permit for the new Laguna restaurant was approved by the planning commission earlier this month.

The Redfearns expect to take over the location in spring 2008, after the Cedar Creek Inn lease expires.

But for now, Suzanne Redfearn was busy teaching etiquette to local youth at Oysters at her Elbows off the Table event.

At the sell-out event in the restaurant’s back room, groups of kids learned to shake hands, properly use utensils and other key habits for their future.

The first session catered to 3rd-, 4th- and 5th-graders; the second focused on an older group of 6th-, 7th- and 8th-graders.

For each group, six tables of six were arranged around the perimeter, allowing for space in the middle for the hosts to interact with the diners.

“We wanted to keep it intimate and replicate as authentic a dining experience as possible,” Ludloff said.

Between teaching about how to get a server’s attention and proper posture at the table, which comprised the focus of the first “Elbows off the Table” event, the restaurateurs served a five-course dinner.

At this second session, subtitled “Please Pass the Ketchup,” courses included cold appetizers, hot appetizers, a sorbet palate cleanser, entrée and dessert.

Nineteen items, ranging from the exotic (Japanese pumpkin tempura) to the more traditional (filet mignon and risotto) were served to the kids, some of whom were more daring than others.

“I never tried an oyster before,” Sophie Witte said.

When asked if she liked it, she answered, “I don’t know that I liked it, but I didn’t hate it.”

Suzanne Redfearn said that her class is as much about socializing as food and table manners.

“It’s about how to interact with others, how to make conversation, how to be a good guest no matter what the setting,” she said.

To give the students an incentive to learn, the event was held in a competition format; colored straws were awarded to each table team for proper behavior, demonstrating good technique, answering questions and learning about the others around them.

Each kid received a mock bill and a copy of “Ten Tips to Dining Right” upon departing.

Redfearn hopes to hold such events in the future; the restaurant was filled with parents who ate in the main restaurant while their kids learned in the back room.