Andrew Brennan

Anthony and I are always looking for an excuse to celebrate, so when we learned that I would be ‘celebrating’ my 10,000th day on earth this week (my 10th kiloday, or metric birthday I suppose you could call it), we booked a table at The Ivy to try it out.

Short verdict — we still prefer The Wolseley for a delicious, upscale, splurge-worthy dinner. Not that The Ivy was bad — to the contrary my rump of Suffolk lamb with creamed polenta & salsa verde was delicious, as were Anthony’s sausages, and the wine we got (Dolcetto d’Alba, Cigliuti, Piedmont 2007 Italy) was fantastic, and the prices weren’t as obscene as we were expecting — but overall the experience just didn’t quite match up with The Wolseley.

The Ivy’s decor is disjointed (and kind of ugly), and the service wasn’t anything to write home about. Because we weren’t regulars we only had the option to book at 6pm or 9:30pm — we chose the latter, which was later than we would have liked. We also didn’t see any celebrities, which (I hesitate to say) is one of the reasons you go to a place like The Ivy. Ah well — overall our dinner was a 7/10, and we’ll probably be back there at some point.