REVIEW – Sylvanian Families Delicious Restaurant

Introducing the Delicious Restaurant… 

I have written before about my love of traditional toys from the 80s. As a child, I absolutely loved nothing more than to play with my Sylvanian Families, and now, 30 odd years on, there is something incredibly rewarding about watching Erin play with the same toys that I did as a child. I spent many an afternoon using my imagination to create little woodland scenes with all my favourite characters, and now, I sit nearby with a huge smile on my face as Erin does exactly the same, particularly with her Starry Point Lighthouse, which she absolutely loves. There is something truly magical about Sylvanian Families that has an almost magnetic appeal – the little flocked characters, the adorable furniture and accessory sets – the opportunities for play are endless.

When I heard at The Toy Fair that Sylvanian Families were bringing out a brand new range in 2018, their largest product launch for 30 years, we were pretty damn excited!

The Sylvanian Families Town range features 25 new products, and creates a more urban destination for the woodland characters to visit on a day out away from the countryside. With set including a Grand Department Store, the Creamy Gelato Shop, a Designer Studio and the Delicious Restaurant, there really are some fantastic new sets to explore. There is even a red and gold Ride Along Tram to help the characters explore their new surroundings in style!

We were sent the Delicious Restaurant to review with Erin, and this is what we thought!

The Product

The Delicious Restaurant serves the finest food in town with it’s very own in house chef (outfit included, character sold separately). Set the fences, aisle, staircase, and awnings as you like, to make your very own restaurant. The set includes everything you need: a kitchen unit, kitchenware, table and chairs, wagon, tableware, and even a chef’s outfit. The gorgeous three-layered cake is perfect for parties. You can create your own townscape by combining this product with other buildings in the Town series, such as the Grand Department Store, Designer Studio, and Creamy Gelato Shop. You can also customise your building by replacing the windows, fences, and awnings included with the building (all sold separately).

The Delicious Restaurant is available from many high street and online retailers including Amazon and retails at £49.99.

Our Experience

As with most of the Sylvanian Families accommodation, there is a little bit of assembly required when you first unpack the Delicious Restaurant from it’s box, however Erin finds this part very exciting, and was able to help me remove all the items from their cellophane packets. The assembly is very straight forward, as most of the items simply click into place, including adding the canopies to the windows, and the railings around the roof line. There are a few stickers to apply, including the Restaurant name sign at the very top of the building. This part can be a bit fiddly (and hard to get the sticker perfectly straight) so most children may want a grown up to help with this bit. The cutlery and smaller pieces also need to be twisted out of their packaging, which I found strangely satisfying! 🙂

I absolutely love the turquoise green colour of the Delicious restaurant. The set comes complete with a little chef’s outfit, and although a character isn’t included in the set, the outfit will fit most of the characters in the range (and has room for a little tail to poke through), We already had some characters from a previous set, so Erin quickly got to work in getting our Daddy Mouse dressed in his new clothes!

There is a wide range of accessories included in the Declicious Restaurant set, including saucepans, a cooker, a cake stand, tables and chairs, and lots of knives, forks, plates and saucers. Erin immediately set to work in creating a little restaurant scene, laying out the table and the menu stand, and sitting her characters down as if they were having a good old natter whilst enjoying some lovely tea!

The three tier birthday cake included in the set is very sweet, and Erin enjoyed pretending that our Rabbit was celebrating her special day. There was lots of singing (loudly and slightly out of tune), and many attempts at making mouse carry the cake (unsuccessfully) –  it was very cute to watch! 🙂

The upstairs of the restaurant is where all the magic happens, and our mouse chef was very very busy in his kitchen, rustling up some delicious food for his guests. The kitchen is very well equipped, with spatulas and ladles as well as a large saucepan and frying pan, all of which can be hung up on the wall when not in use. This part was a bit fiddly and I am not going to lie there was lots of frustrated “Arghhhhs” from both of us as we knocked a glass off when trying to put one of the others away. It appears to be easier the smaller your hands are but the odd knock or nudge of the house can quite easily knock them down.

As some of the pieces are quite small, I felt it would have been nice if the cooking area had some kind of drawer or cupboard where they could be stashed away safely when not in use. With a younger sibling who is DESPERATE to get her hands on the set, we have had to use a little sealed Tupperware pot instead, as we do not want to risk them getting lost or picked up by a younger child.

The layout of the Delicious Restaurant can be rearranged depending on your preference, with the additional floor being moved up to the ceiling so that guests can eat on the roof if they prefer, presumably when the weather is pleasant or they want to get a better view across the Town.

Erin enjoyed walking her waitress up the spiral staircase to keep an eye on her chef (she is a bit of a demanding host!), and would regularly go between the kitchen and to check back on her guests.

Overall, this is a really beautiful set, with its colours and tiny details making it a little different to other Sylvanian Families sets we have owned in the past. There are lots of elements to help Erin bring her imagination to life, and I am confident she will get hours of quality play with the Delicious Restaurant. The only down side is that she now wants more elements of the Town to add to her collection, so I think we know what’s going to be on the birthday list this summer!!

Pros:

• The quality and attention to detail you would expect from traditional Sylvanian Families sets.
• Beautiful colour and aesthetically pleasing – a little different from the original brown/woodland sets.
• Lots of accessories included in the set, and endless opportunities for role play and creativity.
• Set can be linked up with other sets in the Sylvanian Families Town Range.
• Can be rearranged in terms of layout depending on the child’s preferences.
• Easy to set up and fit together.

Cons:

• Some of the pieces included with this set are tiny – in particular, the cutlery and kitchen accessories such as glasses and plates. It would have been nice if the set had come with some kind of drawer or box that these smaller items could have been stored in when not being played with, as obviously there is a small risk of them getting lost.
• Some of the display elements of the Delicious Restaurant can be a bit fiddly for small hands – the glasses rack is very hard to put the wine glasses onto without knocking them off as you do so, and even I as a 35 year old adult found this a little tricky.
• As with many of the Sylvanian Families sets, the Delicious Restaurant doesn’t come with any characters included, although it does have the chefs outfit which will fit characters you already own. For the price, I would have liked to have seen a rabbit or something included in the box which would make it more of a ready to go set.

You can learn more about the Delicious Restaurant and the full range of Sylvanian Families Town series on their website here.

*We were sent a Delicious Restaurant free of charge for the purpose of this review, however as always, all thoughts and opinions are my own.*