Birthdays at The Ivy Brighton

Hey guys!

I wanted to give you a bit of a lifestyle section to this travel area because I’m always trying to find new places to fall in love with that can do great food - in addition to the rest of the hospitality stuff I’m going to cover. So I should give you some information about what I do when I’m out and about because even though we see a lot of options in the UK for vegan food now, it’s a tricky one in other countries and in less metropolitan areas so I tend to introduce vegetarian food into my diet in these instances. I have written a blog all about my stance on veganism here.

So I’m a huge fan of the Ivy and when I’m heading to the West End it’s an easy stop off to get some food before your show or whatever you’re there to do, so I wanted to go there for my birthday before heading to see The Only Way is Jamie which is a fabulous musical that a lot of my favs have performed in. I took my best friend Abbey with me and she arrived about half an hour before me, I was very late because I had come from the Cryogenic Lipo that I’ve got in my beauty blogs, and the trains were very delayed from one end of London to the other, but alas. We got there fine and we dined and drank cocktails. The food was lovely and Abbey had asked the chef to add a ‘Happy Birthday’ swirl to our desserts, so I was so touched at the delicious cauliflower cheese I had which melted in the mouth. I tried to avoid as much of the cheese part but you gotta go with the flow with these heifers until the world picks up on the fact this shit is yummy but not good for you.

So I was very excited to find out the Ivy was going to be bringing a branch to Brighton which was gonna take it’s home in quite an infamous building. So it was a Post Office if I’m not mistaken, it became a sort of strange market place and I was always curious about what was going to be there. The Baron was actually looking at it for one of his projects so it has a long history. So I went there for the first time and it was quite an interesting style as it reminded me as if someone had wanted to recreate the feel of those Rousseau tiger images but like, in vibe only. It just a colourful Brighton assortment.

So I’ve been there a number of times for family things and for meetings, I recently went there with the Outback Goddess Brucey as I was there to meet her fiance James for the first time. So the food has always been quite nice, I enjoyed a lot of the different vegan Thai dishes and the service was nice. However, we did not have a pleasant evening the time I tried to repay the favor to my bestie for my birthday treat.

So we booked the order online and we chose to have food before going out into town, so we placed a late order as available on their booking system and we were there for about eleven. When we arrived the man on the door was very confused and said that the kitchen was shut, so we were like, why does the booking confirmation say we’re here for dinner then? So I don’t know if they’d shut up early or they’d not relayed back to the situation, either way it was awkward.

A manager rushed over and confirmed our digital booking and we were given a table that was not cleared, we then ordered a cocktail and we were told to get it in quickly which was very strange and made everyone feel uncomfortable and rushed considering the website said that the opening of the restaurant was until one in the morning, so it was just odd. We got some sides, I had the brocolli and I got some salady thing, Abbey got some of the fish sides as she eats meat and she said they were delish. I took some images above, I just think that it was a strange booking error with their system and not actually something that was a consistent standard of hospitality because it wasn’t an enjoyable birthday meal as we had planned.

I did contact the restaurant and they phoned and apologised but I was still a little dissapointed as I’d had such a lovely time for my Birthday, I felt terrible. I do think that it could have been handled a little bit better.

Let me know your weird restaurant experiences in the comments below.