When is comes to cooking, many of us try and recreate homey dishes “just like mom used to make.” But for Matt McNamara and Teague Moriarty, who serve up a next generation menu at their San Francisco restaurant Sons & Daughters that mixes classic French technique, molecular gastronomy and a little rebellious reconfiguring of local, seasonal ingredients, Mom’s casserole didn’t make it anywhere near the kitchen. In this case, what mother knew best was design.

Debbie McNamara is an interior designer and mom to the 28-year-old wunderkind chef, Matt. So when it came time to turn the former Café Mozart—a chintz, lace and gilded frame–filled French restaurant that opened before both Matt and Teague were even born—into a stylish space appropriate for the team’s forward-thinking food (and fresh-faced staff—the restaurant’s name refers to the 1980s birthdays of everyone on the payroll), Debbie pulled together her paint swatches and got to work on dramatically redesigning the space. Read more. . .