Restaurants

The Ivy

1-5 West Street,  London,  WC2H 9NQ
020 7836 4751  / www.the-ivy.co.uk / view map

Surveyed 02/11/2011
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About this restaurant

The Ivy defines the word ‘legendary’: getting a table here is a question of persistence, patience, status or influence. The whole place, from the lovely stained glass windows to the comfortable leather banquettes, seems sprinkled in stardust, but, there’s nowhere else in London that quite matches its enduring - and endearing - atmosphere of art, comfort, style and eclecticism. The latter is reflected in a menu that’s a magpie pick of classics, comfort food and the contemporary.

There are those who go to the Ivy and eat nothing but the steak tartare (£10.50/19.75), salmon fishcake with sorrel sauce, Ivy hamburger (£14.75) and Scandinavian iced berries with hot white chocolate sauce (£7.75), but for those lucky enough who come frequently enough to diversify their choices, there’s monkfish and tiger prawn curry, steak and kidney pudding, roasted Cornish sea bream with seaweed and caper butter and baked Alaska with griotte cherries. There is a vegetarian menu including baked Lincolnshire onion tart with wild mushrooms, and weekly specials such as roast grouse with bread sauce or pan-fried red mullet with cockles, saffron and sea vegetables.

The wine list hits the heights, as might be expected, but you don’t have to be a star of stage and screen: there’s a surprisingly good choice at less flamboyant levels.

They say...

Our fish are responsibly caught from sustainable sources.

We are in the process of joining the Sustainable Restaurant Association, and as such, we are conducting regular audits across the group and looking at how we can work towards best practice across our sourcing, environmental impact and our support of local communities and society as a whole.

We say...

It’s all too easy for celebrated restaurants to rest on their laurels, so we can’t overstate the significance of the decision by Caprice Holdings to commit to a sustainable fish-sourcing policy. The Ivy, along with the other restaurants in the group, has really set the pace now in London; they are significant role models and we firmly believe that where they lead, others will follow.

The menu highlights the name of each species served, even the haddock in the fish and chips, and staff are well trained to answer further queries as to where and how the fish were caught. Caprice also make a point of sourcing fish from farms that attempt to derive their fishmeal only from sustainable sources. The king prawns, for example, have Best Aquaculture Practices certification awarded by the Global Aquaculture Alliance. It just goes to show that restaurants of this top calibre can survive without serving bluefine tuna, ray or eel - which is more than you can say for the fish.