Chef de Cuisine at the five-Star Aghadoe Heights Hotel in Killarney, Gavin Gleeson, welcomes the IHF initiative but believes that there has to be a balanced approach to ensure that taste is not compromised.
"The reason that children prefer chicken nuggets is that the food is whacked up with salt. The challenge for chefs is to present healthy food that children will want to eat."
One of the IHF menu options, for example, suggests mashed potatoes, prepared without salt or butter, as an alternative to chips. "I think mashed potatoes taste like muck without salt and butter," says Gleeson. "Salt is a vital part of our diet, as is fat, so it doesn't make sense to just cut them out. It has to be about finding a happy medium."
Aghadoe's children's menu offers chicken goujons made from free-range chicken, home-made chips and Bolognese made from freshly minced meat.
"In a lot of restaurants, the kids' menu is about making things easy for the chef as opposed to healthy for the child. But the child is as much a customer as the adult.
"All chefs are guilty of not really thinking about what happens to kids' meals when they go out on the plate - did the child enjoy it, was it good for them, were they happy? This initiative makes good business sense because kids are our future customers.
Bill Duggan, chef at Fitzgerald's Woodland House Hotel in Adare says the hotel's children's menu is currently priced at around €8. He does not envisage a price increase when the new menus are implemented.
"At the moment, we would have a kids' menu that includes things like chicken nuggets but we also have chargrilled chicken, pasta and Bolognese.
"This initiative makes complete sense for us. We have plans to add meatballs, pancakes, minute steaks, vegetarian lasagne and shepherd's pie to our kids' menu. Eventually we will look to phase out nuggets and that sort of thing completely."