Poison Ivy

The Ivy, like Langan’s Brasserie, was so hip no real people were admitted – like Mustique.

I went to both (the restaurants not the island, my sister used to go there) when they were well off the boil and found myself looking at other nonentitities hoping to spot a celeb. Now The Ivy is a franchise. In a way it has found a gap in the market – it still has a whiff of glamour, about as sexy as Lynx deodorant – and I have been. The best branch is beside The Bridge theatre ‘cos it’s so convenient pre-matinee. The problem is the menu. I like a menu where every entry appeals – like being in the bookies’ ring before a Selling Plate.

Yesterday I was taken to lunch at a venue that ticked all the boxes. I had smoked salmon, scrambled eggs and brown toast with lashings of butter. These days anyone who can afford to eat out, craves nursery food, not that there was much smoked salmon when I had TV dinners on a tray in the library, because I was too young to dine downstairs with the grown-ups. Sixty years later I still prefer a TV dinner to going out with grown-ups and baked beans are sometimes still on the menu.

Yesterday the lunchers were extremely elegant, elderly, attractively attired, women. I now know there was TV footers at 1.00 pm yesterday but it’s a venue for ladies who lunch on white wine and a lettuce leaf. It was most enjoyable.