7th March 2007
West End Celebrity Hangout
We wanted to dine somewhere special to celebrate my niece's birthday and the arrival of my sister in London, so we headed to The Ivy, one of London's favourite restaurants and celebrity hangouts.
The Ivy has a warm, relaxed feel. It is stylish but not stuffy. Plenty of professional staff to cater to your needs and food not as expensive as you would expect. Booking about 10 days in advance, I managed to get a table at 6pm on a Sunday evening. At the time of booking, and then again when I confirmed the booking, I was told that we could only have the table from 6pm till 8pm....so was a bit tense when two of our dining companions were 20 minutes late! In the end we weren't pushed out at 8pm, and were able to enjoy dessert and coffee and leave at our leisure.
None of us had a starter as we didn't think we would have time due to our delayed start. For main meals, we had the Fillet of Hake with braised planchada & chorizo; the Fillet of Red Deer with buttered kale and bashed neeps; and the Slow-roast Shoulder of Lamb with caponata. All meals were tasty, especially the Lamb.
For dessert, the boys had the Honeycomb Ice Cream with hot chocolate sauce which was delicious! The ladies had the Chocolate Pudding Souffl which was also great, but very rich.
We had an excellent meal, though didn't see anyone famous (that we recognised anyway!). I got into trouble for taking photos as soon as we arrived, hence there are no photos of our meal.