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I HAVE been waiting for the Ivy to re-open for some time, which at least is not as long as Jeremy King and Chris Corbin of the Caprice have been waiting. They started showing interest in the site six years ago, but didn't get the place till, by chance, a couple of years or so ago they saw that it had come onto the market and put in an offer. There was a sort of neatness in their plan to buy the Ivy. Mario Gallati, who went there as head waiter about a year after its opening in 1919 (staying for over 45 years), went on, in 1948, backed by customers from the Ivy in the main, to open the Caprice. Given the triumph that King and Corbin have justifiably had with their reborn Caprice, it's fair to say that if anyone can save the poor old Ivy, left to dwindle into a branch of Wheeler's, they can.
And they have. All the old Edwardian plush has been ripped away. The brass fittings and clutter of gimcrackery have been disposed of. Only the slate-lozenged stained glass windows remain of the origin- al, to which Corbin and King have added a scene on night-coloured glass by Patrick Caulfield. Inside, as you sit with your pre-dinner drink in what begins to resem- ble the lounge of an elegant cruise liner in pleasurable view of a mural by Tom Phillips, you can sense the well- upholstered, reassuring feel of a restaurant well run, one that feels long-established although it's only a week or so old.
But then, King and Corbin are both born restaurateurs. Their waiters are carefully groomed before they're let loose on the public. A special exam has been devised which has to be passed before they're allowed to pass 'on to higher levels'. No risks are taken (though there is no sense of inhibiting formality). Before Charles Fon- taine left the Caprice to set up his Quality Chop House, Tony Howorth was brought in to work alongside him so there would be no hiccup. A good few months before his departure to the Ivy, Mark Hix was brought in to the Caprice. It's expensive to have two head chefs working at the same time, but for the customers, and the smooth running of the restaurant, an ex- travagance which repays.
The newly kitted-out restaurant doesn't have the resplendent opulence it had in its heyday, but the new look remains faithful to the ideal of substantial elegance: oak panelling on the walls, green-leather ban- quettes, stiff white linen on tables arranged at a gracious distance from one another, and heavy silver — magisterially assembled but not ornate. The thing that's important is that you're comfortable eating here.
What you eat doesn't differ markedly from what you would eat at the Caprice. Start with prosciutto, the colour of cats' tongues, with radicchio blasted under the grill long enough to lose its bitterness and acquire that curious creaminess it has when cooked. Bang Bang chicken remains, as does the Caesar salad (even Joe Allen's can't do it better) or baby artichoke hearts, warm and topped with a mountainous pile of ricotta with a mash of pimento, mushroom and tarragon. And, of course, the eggs Benedict. Whatever the Amer- icans have inflicted on us with McDonald's and lesser forms (and yes, there are lesser forms) of fast food, they have repaid with their invention of eggs Benedict — that gloop of hollandaise over soft poached egg on a bacon-piled muffin.
Main courses take, though not exclusive- ly, a more traditional line: boiled silverside in slabs of quivering pink, with a fads of leeks and chunks of carrot, steamily odor- iferous; Gressingham duck in a wine- soused reduction on braised cabbage; boned and stuffed oxtail with a glossily thick, mahogany-coloured sauce sticky with marrow juices and dotted with baby onions and lentils.
Puddings require some stamina, but temptation in the form of the mousse aux deux chocolats (curved mounds of egg-rich white and cocoa-dusted brown), redcurrant-glazed summer pudding or coupe Caprice (coconut ice, artery- narrowing amounts of cream and banana) is hard to resist. There is no special pre- or post-theatre dinner (doors open at 5.30 and close at midnight, soon to be later), but no one minds if you have just a Caesar salad and a glass of wine. Come for Sunday lunch and have kedgeree with wild mushrooms, omelette Arnold Bennett (which Howorth made to some acclaim while on the fish phase as chef tournant at the Mirabelle) or roast beef.
If you feel like giving yourself a treat from the wine list, try their Rioja (Conde de la Salceda, Gran Riserva at £17.50), superbly musty and velvety, or a springy Tavel rosé, smartly priced at £11.25. And you can be sure, with King and Corbin, the house wine (f6.50 a bottle) will be agree- ably drinkable.
The show is run, with ebullient efficien- cy, by the manager Mitchell Everard, sent over from the Caprice, who looks cheeringly as if he should be hosting a joint in 1950s Clerkenwell, and maitre d' Daniele Rampone (late of Joe Allen's and Orso), who fronts the house in his custom- ary distinguished fashion. Spend as little or as much as you like: three courses with too much to drink and service comes in at around £35 a head; half that would be entirely possible.
The Ivy always used to be the place to come after the theatre; now it has been rescued and reconstituted it looks set to be just that once again.
The Ivy: I West Street, London WC2; tel 071 836 4751
Nigella Lawson
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