Last week Splendid_chap and I visited the newly opened Ivy Norwich.
There was quite a lot of pre opening hype and then all the cool Norwich bloggers were invited for the pre opening ( I’m not a cool Norwich blogger by the way ) I’m one of the uncool ones feeling jealous of the cool ones gettting a free invite and a free meal.
I booked online and chose an early afternoon reservation as it just suited our plans for the day, hubby had a lunchtime hair appointment so we had a very late lunch and a very early dinner.
We were welcomed at the door and seated upstairs and like all the photos we’ve all seen in Instagram, it has been beautifully decorated. There are references to Norwich within the decor such as the Castle, the Cathedral and yellow canaries to represent the football team. It’s a nice touch that it’s not just a generic decor scheme.
Our waiter Lee was fantastic and really looked after us with a great sense of humour and professionalism.
The menu is pretty big. I, as always, have my priorities straight and concentrated on the cocktail menu first and chose a rhubarb and raspberry crumble cocktail which was huge and delicious!
The food menu has loads of choice, almost too much choice but I opted for smoked salmon and crab to start as I thought it would be quite light and it was. Absolutely delicious, plenty of salmon, some yummy crab and rye bread on the side, just what I fancied and made a reallly lovely starter.
I follwed this up with The Ivy Shepherd’s Pie as I wanted something warming after a cold starter. It was so rich and umptious with a little gravy boat on the side and a healthy portion of French beans and peas. It was sublime. You know when you get a meal and every single mouthful gets you making yummy noises – this was one of those meals.
I couldn’t manage a dessert so had a coffee but couldn’t resist a taste of hubby’s cappuccino cake with milk foam which was unbelievably rich but still light at the same time. He’s lucky I didn’t demolish it for him, it was so good.
I really can’t fault the experience that we had at The Ivy, I know others that have not been impressed and I know others that have been back a few times already. My personal experience was it is a beautiful restaurant and the food, staff and service were without fault. It wasn’t cheap, but I didn’t expect it to be. We did have a 3 course meal with a cocktail so I was almost surprised the bill was not higher.
This is a great place for a special occasion meal but you can just go in for a coffee or breakfast and lunch. If you’re thinking of going, go, I don’t think you’ll regret it.
Norwich just got that little bit better.
norfolkgal 