How to Turn Your Dining Room Into a Fancy ‘Restaurant’ on Mother’s Day

As tradition dictates, mothers are meant to be served on Mother’s Day. If you do nothing else to celebrate, it is practically a requirement that someone — someone who is not mum — prepare a nice meal. For some families, that has typically meant scoring a brunch reservation at her favourite restaurant. But, COVID, so those options might be even more limited this year than usual. That’s ok, though, because you have everything you need to create a fine dining experience for her within your own home.

Enlist the help of the children

If you have young kids, this part is key. Sure, you could cook a nice meal and set it on the table, but that’s less adorable than having the kids take (some) ownership of the experience. And because kids love to help and they love to role-play, they will delight in acting as host/hostess, server, and/or chef.

To start, you need a menu, which should be created by the children. If they’re old enough to write out the options, great. If not, they can draw pictures (and you can write the words or descriptions underneath each picture). If you have multiple children who want to help create the menu, you can put each child in charge of a different portion — one can create the drink menu while another handles the brunch, dinner, or dessert options.

You can keep the menu pretty simple: If you’re doing brunch, the beverage options could be coffee, tea, or orange juice, and the meal options could be an omelette, scrambled eggs, toast, and bacon. Be sure to put the name of your restaurant at the top.

From there, figure out who will act as the host or hostess, who will serve the meals and check in periodically to refill her beverage, and who will help you prepare the meal.

Set the scene

If you really want to impress her, lean in on the fancy restaurant theme. Pull out a tablecloth, create a place setting for her with the nicest dishes and glasses you own (bonus points if you have cloth napkins), put some fresh cut flowers in a vase, and turn on background music for extra ambience.

Next, create a host/hostess station. All you need to do is pull a small table to the doorway of the dining room or kitchen and place the kids’ homemade menus on top. This is where she’ll “check in,” so the host can lead her to her table and hand her the menu.

Go all-in

Encourage the kids to fully adopt their roles. If they’re the chef, have them don an apron. If they’re the hostess, have them dress up a bit to play the part. Have them address their mum as if she were a real customer. (“Would you like some more coffee? Can I get you anything else today, miss?”)

And at the end of the meal, be sure to tell her there’s no charge today — the food is on the house.