Best Mother's Day Restaurants 2026

London's most romantic room, under a canopy of cherry blossom. A Covent Garden Sunday lunch built for the occasion — book the conservatory early.

Clos Maggiore sits at 33 King Street, a minute from the Covent Garden piazza, and keeps a conservatory dining room whose ceiling is a canopy of white cherry blossom with a log fire beneath it in winter. It is routinely named the most romantic restaurant in London, and for a Mother's Day lunch that setting does half the work before the food arrives. Sunday lunch runs from noon to 2.15pm, with a fixed-price two- and three-course menu alongside the à la carte.

Executive chef Marcellin Marc cooks a classical French menu — seasonal game in autumn, spring lamb and vegetables in May — with the precision the room's reputation demands. The wine list is one of the deepest in London, which matters if you are marking the day with something older than the children. Book the blossom conservatory rather than the terrace or front room, and request it by name when you reserve; it is the seat the day calls for.

Two Michelin stars on the Eiffel Tower's second floor. Sunday lunch here, Paris at her feet, is the grandest gesture a Mother's Day allows.

Le Jules Verne occupies the second floor of the Eiffel Tower, reached by a private lift on the south pillar, and holds two Michelin stars under the culinary direction of Frédéric Anton. Sunday lunch is served from noon to 1.30pm as a set tasting menu — five courses at €295 or seven at €330 — with the whole of Paris framed in the windows beside the table. There is no more cinematic Sunday lunch in Europe.

Anton's cooking is precise, seasonal, and French to the core: langoustine, Bresse poultry, a dessert trolley that arrives as a small event. The room is formal and the windows are the point, so ask for a table on the glass when you book, ninety days ahead if you can. For a milestone Mother's Day — a significant birthday, a first trip together — this is the table that a family remembers for a decade.

The room New Yorkers take the people they love. Michael Anthony's warm Flatiron tavern is the least fussy great Mother's Day table in the city.

Gramercy Tavern at 42 East 20th Street has been the warmest important room in New York since 1994, and chef Michael Anthony has run its kitchen since 2006 on a menu built around Greenmarket produce. On Sunday it opens at 11.30am and runs to 10.30pm across two spaces: the walk-in Tavern, with à la carte plates from the wood grill, and the reservation-only Dining Room with its seasonal prix fixe.

For a Mother's Day lunch with a mixed table of ages, the front Tavern is the smarter choice — no set-menu commitment, a bar for anyone who arrives early, and Anthony's cooking without the formality. Order the seasonal vegetable plates and whatever fish came in that week, and finish with the pastry team's dessert. The one Michelin star sits lightly here; nothing about the room performs its own importance, which is exactly why mothers love it.

Keith McNally's SoHo brasserie, nearly thirty years on and still the best room in America to spend a Sunday morning. Book brunch, order the plateau.

Balthazar has anchored 80 Spring Street in SoHo since 1997, the brasserie Keith McNally built to look a century older than it is, all mercury mirrors and red banquettes. It opens Sundays from 9am, and weekend brunch here remains one of the defining New York experiences. For Mother's Day it delivers exactly what a celebratory morning wants: energy, a great room, and a menu that suits every generation at the table.

Order the chilled seafood plateau to share, the eggs Benedict or the steak frites, and a basket from the Balthazar bakery next door that supplies half of downtown with its bread. The room is loud and packed by design, so this is brunch as event rather than a quiet tête-à-tête. Book two to three weeks ahead for a Sunday table; the 9 to 11am slots are the calmest before the room fills.

Piccadilly's grand café, built for exactly this. Sunday breakfast, lunch, or afternoon tea under the chandeliers — the easiest elegant Mother's Day in London.

The Wolseley at 160 Piccadilly opened in 2003 inside a former 1920s car showroom, and its pillared, chandelier-lit hall is the closest thing London has to a grand Viennese café. It runs Sundays from 8am to 10pm, moving through breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, and dinner, which makes it the most flexible elegant booking of the day — you can take her at whatever hour the family can gather.

The kitchen does grand-café classics with real polish: kedgeree and eggs at breakfast, Wiener schnitzel and fish at lunch, and an afternoon tea that is among the best-value in central London for the setting. For Mother's Day, the 3pm afternoon tea is the sweet spot — scones, pastries, and champagne without committing to a three-hour meal. Book two weeks ahead and ask for a table in the main hall rather than the mezzanine.

Judy Rodgers's Market Street institution since 1979. Order the roast chicken for two the minute you sit down and let a San Francisco Sunday unfold.

Zuni Café has stood at 1658 Market Street since 1979, the copper-topped bar and brick oven that Judy Rodgers turned into a California institution. It opens Sundays for a brunch-into-lunch service that regulars build their whole afternoon around. The room is bright, angular, and full of light, which suits a leisurely Mother's Day meal that starts with oysters and never quite wants to end.

The move is to order the brick-oven roast chicken for two with warm bread salad the moment you sit down — it takes an hour to roast, and it is the dish the restaurant is famous for. Add the Caesar, made with anchovies filleted to order, and the house burger on focaccia at lunch. It is the best-value room on this list, and the one that feels least like an occasion restaurant and most like a very good Sunday. Reserve up to sixty days ahead.

Walter and Margarita Manzke's bakery-café in Chaplin's old studio. The best pastry brunch in Los Angeles, and a walk-in when the dinner rooms are booked out.

République occupies Charlie Chaplin's former 1928 studio building at 624 South La Brea Avenue, its vaulted brick nave now home to Walter Manzke's kitchen and Margarita Manzke's pastry counter. The café serves brunch every day from 8am to 2pm on a walk-in basis, and on Mother's Day that daytime service is the reason to come — the pastry programme here is the best in the city.

Start at the counter for a kouign-amann and a morning bun, then order the croque madame, the shakshuka, or the brioche French toast from the café menu. Margarita Manzke's baking has earned national recognition, and a box of pastries to take home doubles as the gift. Because the café takes no reservations, arrive before 9am on Mother's Day or expect a line down La Brea; the dinner tasting is separate and bookable if you would rather sit down in the evening.