The Ivy Brighton

Restaurant

The Ivy
51 Ship St, 
Brighton 
BN1 1AF

01273 323847

Overview

Eva and I went to the recently opened Ivy in Brighton on Friday night for dinner.

The Ivy is located in the grade II listed old post office, it is open seven days a week, offering all-day dining. The Ivy has a DJ spinning music on weekends during brunch, 11am – 5pm.

There is also a private dining room seating up to 20 guests and canapé receptions for up to 40 guests.

Ambience

The decor is very colourful, many prints on the wall are by local artists giving the place an art deco vibe. The tables and seating are comfortable, but maybe are a little too tightly squeezed together. There are leather banquettes, a central onyx bar and pendant lighting.

Personally speaking I am not 100% certain that The Ivy's version of Fat Boy Slim spinning discs is an absolute necessity. However, that is just my personal view.

Menu

The menu is "busy" to say the least, offering an array of food ranging from chicken, steaks, sarnies (pre 17:00), lobster and shepherd's pie.

Service

We were warmly welcomed, the service was friendly, efficient and professional.

Food

Eva started with smoked salmon and crab with dill cream and soda bread. She was very happy with the salmon, though felt the crab itself may not have added that much value to the taste.

She then opted for the veal paillard, which was a special. This was a thinly beaten veal escalope, sauteed in breadcrumbs and served with a lemon caper sauce, with mash as an accompaniment. Eva was very happy with this, the veal was tender and flavoursome and was complemented well by the lemon caper sauce.

I started with the prawn cocktail, a classic served with avocado, baby gem lettuce and cherry tomatoes in a rose marie sauce. It was a decent dish, a good number of prawns that had body to them. I would say that the sauce itself was excessively salty, this was either due to an overdose of  the "piquant" element of rose marie or simply too much salt.

I then had the 21 day old dry aged 12oz rib eye steak on the bone. It was splendid, cooked medium as requested. The meat was exceptionally tender, it cut like butter, and very flavoursome with just the right amount of fat and zero sinew. I had ordered the green peppercorn red wine and rosemary sauce as an accompaniment, but quite frankly I didn't need it as the steak spoke for itself.

The bill, which included, service, champagne and four Sambucas came to £215.

NB: for reasons best known to the Ivy they won't flame your Sambuca (for full details please see my views on that here).

Overall Opinion

A fun establishment, good food and welcoming professional service. It is worth a visit.